


the road leads back to you

by heyfightme



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Coming Out, Communication, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mental Health Issues, Past Drug Use, Pining, Slow Burn, on the other hand, so much pining, there is no abuse in the relationship, there is no infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-08 02:26:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 56,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13448577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyfightme/pseuds/heyfightme
Summary: The spare key is under the mat, just like Poots said it would be. Hefting his carefully-curated care package under one arm, Jack wrestles with the key in the lock before tucking it safely back into its hiding spot. He shuts the door quickly behind himself, and is toeing out of his shoes when a voice echoes out from somewhere.“Sweetheart, you’re home!”Jack Zimmermann is an established hockey player. He’s three years in to his NHL career, has had the A for the Falconers for two and a half, and is ready to make winners out of the new group of rookies. He pulls one under his wing, affectionately nicknamed Poots, and it should all go as planned. But say Jack accidentally discovers that Poots has a boyfriend. And say that Poots wasn’t a very good boyfriend. And say, for arguments’ sake, Poots’ boyfriend definitely deserved better.Jack is maybe, possibly, totally fucked.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **This is dedicated to all of you: the bright ones, the charmers, the sweet peaches.**   
>  **And especially for Mara, who is at the end of every road.**
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>   **Endless gratitude to every single one of my readers. ❤**
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> _Based on fic and concept by[garden-of-succulents](http://garden-of-succulents.tumblr.com/) and [gutsybitsies](http://gutsybitsies.tumblr.com/) on tumblr._
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> Listen to the playlist for this fic [on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/whyfrenchfry/playlist/7yq5Tyu3In8KLIxgHzCDrE).
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> I once said to someone that I never abandon projects, I just take a really long time to finish them. That is the truest for this one, but I feel it needed the time and I'm deeply glad I took it. If I had finished it sooner, I don't think that it would have turned out this way - that is, exactly the way I wanted it. I hope it's what you wanted, too.

 

 

> **_Other arms reach out to me;_**  
>  **_Other eyes smile tenderly._**  
>  **_Still in peaceful dreams I see,_**  
>  **_The road leads back to you.  
>  _**  
>  \- ‘Georgia On My Mind’ as recorded by Ray Charles

 

Jack doesn’t mean for it to happen. He hates intruding, hates to discover things he knows he shouldn’t know, hates to invade the privacy of others. And yet, it isn’t like he wasn’t invited. Poots had left him simple instructions: just go right in, he’d said. The code on the door will work fine, he’d said. The spare key is under the mat.

 

Jack was just being a good Captain. Good Captains did things like drop off care packages full of tape and protein powder at their rookies’ apartments while they were with the physical therapist. They put little snack bags of dried fruit and nuts in the care packages as well, because treats are nice.

 

He was trying his hardest to be kind and supportive and welcoming, because even now, he feels the ledge he was on for his entire rookie year, scared shitless that no one wanted him there anyway and he was never going to measure up.

 

What Jack doesn’t mean to happen is to knock the vase on the table by the door to the floor with a resounding crash.

 

What Jack doesn’t mean to happen is to let out a shocked yelp when a voice greets him from inside Poots’ supposed-to-be-empty apartment.

 

What Jack doesn’t mean to happen is to arrive at Poots’ apartment when someone else is there.

 

The spare key is under the mat, just like Poots said it would be. Hefting his carefully-curated care package under one arm, Jack wrestles with the key in the lock before tucking it safely – as safe as a key can be under a doormat – back into its hiding spot. He shuts the door quickly behind himself, and is toeing out of his shoes when a voice echoes out from somewhere.

 

“Sweetheart, you’re home!”

 

Jack yelps. He scrambles for the door and his shoes at the same time. The vase goes flying.

 

He is holding the box in one hand and his shoes in the other, staring dejectedly at the shards of glass scattered over the floor, just as a man skids into the hallway.

“Oh my god, what hap—”

The man halts, jerks up short a few feet from Jack, and gasps.

 

This man is wearing a Falconers shirsey and a pair of yellow shorts with knee-high athletic socks. He is holding a wooden spoon and has a rapidly reddening complexion.

“Oh my god,” he says again.

“Um. Hi. Hello.” Jack feels hot; he’s probably turning red as well. “I broke the vase.”

“Yes.”

 

They stare at each other for a moment. Jack coughs. Decisively, he sets the box and his shoes on the floor and strides forward, careful of the broken glass in his sock feet. He extends a hand to the guy.

“Sorry, hi. I’m Jack Zimmermann.”

“I know.” The stranger’s voice is high and slightly trembling, and his handshake – though firm – is a little moist. Jack can sympathize.

“I just came to, ah, drop something off for Poots. I didn’t know anyone would be… well. I thought he lived alone.”

The guy laughs, a discernibly nervous and vaguely hysterical sound, before clamping a hand over his mouth. “Oh, he does! He does, this is his apartment, I’m just. I’m… visiting.”

“That’s… nice.”

 

Jack can’t help peering at the guy. He’s probably nearly half a foot shorter than Jack, and therefore Poots, who has the solid height of a corn-fed Midwesterner. He’s also blond and brown-eyed, and carrying a distinct Southern twang in his words. It seems highly unlikely that he and Poots are related. Jack clears his throat.

“Sorry, but who--?”

“Oh my goodness, how rude of me. I’m Bitty. Eric Bittle, but everyone calls me Bitty. Fitz and I – um. Poots. We went to college together.”

 

Jack feels the coolness of relief flood through to his face. He isn’t sure what he was thinking, but – they’re college buddies. That’s fine. That makes sense. He feels more comfortable quirking one side of his mouth in a half-smile. He feels more comfortable sliding his hands into his pockets, in a way he knows will make his shirt pull across his chest.

 

“He didn’t mention he had a friend staying with him. Sorry if I scared you, I should’ve knocked or something.”

The guy – Bittle – makes that noise again, the high-pitched laugh. He’s still very red, and still has his hand covering his mouth. Jack is starting to get a little concerned.

“I thought I’d surprise him! I obviously didn’t think it through!” His voice, it’s painfully obvious to Jack, is falsely bright. He squints, and opens his mouth to say something about it, but the acrid smell of food burning proves a sound distraction.

“Are you cooking something?”

 

If possible, Bittle looks even more horrified as he hisses, “My spinach puffs,” and whirls his way back through one of the doors. Jack pads after him into what is apparently the kitchen.

 

It’s clearly practical and utilitarian, with a reasonable amount of bench space – currently covered in an array of ingredients – and a new-but-small cooktop and oven. An oven, into which Bittle is peering and muttering, “oh no” ad nauseam, with various inflections. He extracts a tray with mitted hands and drops it onto the cooktop with a dejected sigh. Jack sidles up behind him and peers over his shoulder. Neatly lined on the tray are a series of pastry triangles, all more than partway blackened. He whistles.

“And I thought I was bad at cooking.”

 

Bittle whirls on him, frowning deeply. He slaps him in the chest with an oven mitt; Jack takes a step back, surprised.

“I’ll have you know, Jack Zimmermann, that I am actually an excellent cook, and if not for the distraction of a certain clumsy someone, these spinach puffs would have been perfectly golden brown and completely delicious.”

Jack can’t help it: he grins. “Completely delicious, eh?”

“Completely delicious and within your dietary requirements, you can be sure of that.” Bittle sniffs a little and folds his arms. It is, if Jack’s being honest, more than partway endearing.

“Well then, it’s a shame I won’t get to try one.”

“Excuse me? Who said I would’ve given one to you anyway? As it is, though, seeing as you ruined this batch, you’re obligated to help me fix a new one before Fitz gets home.”

“I just told you I’m a terrible cook.”

Bittle makes a scoffing noise and rolls his eyes so hard Jack swears he feels the world tilt.

“I don’t believe that for a second. And besides, you’re not going to be doing any actual cooking. You’re in charge of the grunt work.”

“ _Oui, chef_.”

 

Bittle’s cheeks colour again, and he smiles with a bright kind of surprise before schooling his expression back into something carefully stern.

“Right. Well, we have work to do.”

                                                                       

* * *

 

Once the new batch of puffs are egg-washed and sitting safely in the oven, Jack returns to the hallway armed with dustpan and brush. He scoops all of the broken glass onto the tray, and sweeps a careful hand across the floorboards in case of any errant shards. Lifting the care package under his arm again, he returns to the kitchen to find Bittle crouched in front of the oven with his nose near pressed to the glass.

“I’m just thankful I made extra pastry in the first place,” he mutters. Jack feels himself smiling gently as he tips the remains of the vase into the trash.

 

“Be careful out there in the hallway, alright? I think I got most of the glass, but there might still be some grains rolling about. You might want to tell Poots to run a vacuum out there.”

“Oh, I’ll do that later,” Bittle replies loftily, still absorbed in the rising of the spinach puffs. Jack directs a raised brow at the back of his head. He isn’t sure, but cleaning doesn’t completely seem like something a friend would do for another unasked, if they weren’t the one to make the mess. Neither does baking health-conscious spinach puffs, truthfully. He’s never thought to cook or tidy anything for any of his teammates. But then again, maybe Jack is just a bad friend. He makes a mental note to try a little harder.

 

“Okay!” Bittle exclaims, jerking Jack out of his thoughts. Fixing the mitts back onto his hands, Bittle eases the oven open. The tray he extracts is laden with spinach puffs that are, as he said they would be, perfectly golden. Aside from one that Jack was allowed to fold, they are all equal in size and delightfully pillowy-looking. They smell, it’s true, completely delicious.

 

Jack stands next to Bittle over the spinach puffs, and as he glances down to take in Bittle’s quietly satisfied smile, something thrums in the deep of his ribcage. As though he heard it, Bittle pats a hand over Jack’s chest with a sort of efficient approval.

“Look now; you did a good job.”

Jack snorts.

“Me? The one I did looks like a reject.”

“It may not be pretty, but I’m sure it’s yummy as hell.”

Bittle nudges past Jack to reach into a drawer and pull out a knife and two forks. With careful fingers, he cuts Jack’s lopsided spinach puff into two approximate halves, and passes Jack one of the forks.

“Careful; it’ll be hot.”

 

Jack blows on the forkful of spinach puff that he lifts to his mouth, but it’s still near to blistering when he bites down on it. It is, however, salty and sharp with a slight nip of paprika. The pastry is flaky, and despite the fact Jack knows it is miraculously low-fat, tastes rich and full. He can’t stop the pleased moan he makes.

 

Bittle’s expression is, in a word, smug.

 

“Told you so.”

“Yummy as hell,” Jack agrees.

 

He smiles down at Bittle, eyes and mouth feeling soft and warm, almost liquid in how easy it spreads across his face. Bittle’s smile, too, is small but happy.

 

The sound of a key in the lock is almost deafening. Bittle jumps, and his smile stretches into something wider and slightly more panicked.

“Oh, Fitz is home! Just in time.”

 

“Hello?”

 

Poots’ voice sounds down the hallway, cautious. As it penetrates the quiet and calm of the kitchen, Jack finds it overly loud. He wanders out to the entry.

“Hey, Poots. Sorry, those are mine.”

Poots looks up from where he was frowning, apparently nonplussed, at Jack’s shoes by the door, expression clearing as he lays eyes on him.

“Oh, hey. Jack. You’re still here.” He starts forward, then pauses. “Were you – um. Were you cooking?”

Jack briefly becomes aware of how odd his appearance must seem: shoeless and quite at home in Poots’ apartment, seemingly alone, with the entire place warm and smelling of fresh-baked spinach puffs. He laughs.

“No, no no – well, _yes_ , but I didn’t just—” He breaks off and chuckles again, clapping a comforting hand on Poots’ shoulder in an attempt to soothe his bewildered expression. “Your friend Bittle is here, and I was just helping him out.”

 

This statement has the opposite effect of its intention: Poots’ face pales with a startling rapidity, and his jaw clamps shut as his eyebrows fly into his hairline.

“Oh?” His voice comes out reedy and high in a way it isn’t normally, and if it weren’t so inexplicable to the situation, Jack might think he was afraid. “You’ve met Bitty?”

“Yeah, I… ah, I think I scared the shit out of him when I came in. I broke your vase, by the way. I’ll pay for it.” Poots seems wholly unconcerned by the vase, however. His eyes are darting with frantic speed between Jack and the doorway to the kitchen, his mouth gaping slightly. He fixes his eyes finally on Jack, and visibly swallows.

 

Jack has the sensation of stepping onto a non-moving escalator.

 

“We made spinach puffs,” he supplies, more than anything to fill the perceivably tense silence that’s settled between them.

“Jack, I can explain.” Poots says it at a hiss, in a rush, as a plea, and now Jack can’t help but feel a niggle of doubt.

“It’s fine; Bittle said you didn’t know he was coming. Come on, I can show you what I brought.” He pats Poots’ shoulder once more, firmly, and turns to join Bittle back in the kitchen – Bittle, who is standing at attention by the spinach puffs where Jack left him, looking like he’s close to being sick. Jack bypasses confused and lands straight on concerned.

 

“What’s up with you two?”

 

The question makes Bittle laugh in that hysterical way again, and Poots make a strangled noise that isn’t quite the word, “Nothing.” Jack becomes decisive.

“Sit down,” he instructs, the words hinting with the ring of authority that does him well on the ice. Bittle crosses to the stools by the bench and hoists himself up stiffly; Poots slumps into the one furthest from him, leaving a space of two chairs between.

 

“Are you both okay?” Jack asks, gentler.

“I just – I didn’t know Bitty would be here.”

“I wanted to surprise you.” Bittle is whispering, and staring at the counter, and bright red in the face again. He seems, for all appearances, ashamed.

“I don’t like surprises, I told you –” Poots bites out a sigh, voice harsh with irritation and still high with embarrassment.

 

A heavy bolt slides into place in the back of Jack’s mind, and he is abruptly overwhelmed with how much he feels like he’s intruding. Regardless of his feelings, though, he is here. That fact is unavoidable. He clears his throat.

“Boys, it’s okay. You can stop panicking. I’ll go; you’ve got some stuff to talk about, obviously.” He raps his knuckles quickly on the countertop, and looks once more between Bittle and Poots. Bittle, who has closed his eyes and is hugging himself with a worrying ferocity. And Poots, who is once again looking at Jack with wide eyes and snaps to standing as Jack rises.

 

“Jack – it’s not what it – we’re not, I swear it’s not –”

“Poots.” Jack can’t help the edge in his voice. “I mean it. It’s okay. I understand. I won’t… I’m not going to say anything.”

Bittle audibly sniffs, and Jack looks over to him to see the beginnings of tears pushing their way from under his forcefully clenched eyelids. Jack is struck, overwhelmingly, by an urge to wrap him into his arms.

“I’ll talk to you later,” he says to Poots. “Bittle, it was… it was really nice to meet you.” Bittle’s eyes fly open and land on Jack with unfettered shock. After a moment, he smiles minutely. Jack takes it as a win.

 

Before he closes the apartment door behind himself, he hears the words, “Fitz, I’m so sorry.”

 

* * *

 

Jack’s phone rings at a little after nine that evening, just as he finishes his nightly dental routine. He spits out his mouthwash, and answers.

“Hello, this is Jack.”

“Jack! It’s Poots.”

“Oh, hey Poots.” Jack clamps the phone between his shoulder and ear and busies himself hanging up his discarded towels. Dead air fills the call, so he says, “Poots?” again with a little hesitation.

 

“Yeah, sorry. I, uh, I just wanted to say thanks. For what you said today. That you’re not going to tell anyone?”

He asks it, a question, as though he’s still trying to confirm that Jack was telling the truth.

“Of course not, kid. It can be harsh; I get it. I’ve got your back.” The moniker springs to his mouth unbidden, even though he’s never used it before. For the briefest of moments, Jack pauses. There was a time, not long ago, when he was the _kid_. Even with the A on his sweater, there had been some things he thought he’d never shake.

 

He coughs down the line and crosses back out of his bedroom to his kitchen, deciding that if this conversation is going to continue he’ll need a glass of water.

“How’s Bittle doing?”

“Fine, he’s fine. He just left. He apologized for everything, said to tell you he’s sorry too. He… I mean, it’s whatever, but he does needy shit like this sometimes.”

 

Jack glances at the clock; it is definitely after nine. Poots went to college in Massachusetts. Bittle would likely be taking the train back, by way of Boston – well over an hour’s travel, at least. Jack idly wonders if Bittle has class tomorrow.

 

Out loud, however, he says, “He doesn’t have to apologize to me. It was good to meet him.”

“Yeah, he’s something.”

There’s a slight edge in Poots’ tone that makes Jack direct a confused frown into his glass of water.

 

“He’s really nice, Poots. You’ve done good there.” He coughs again, throat unaccountably bone dry, and takes a decent gulp from his glass. “And hey – ‘Fitz’? Bet you’re wishing we all used that nickname instead of Poots.”

Poots laughs, already sounding like he has let go of some of the weight of that afternoon.

“Nah, honestly, it’s nice to have a change. After four years at college, ‘Fitz’ was getting a little old.”

“So how long have you two been together?”

“I guess a few months? That’s why I’m kind of like, _blah_ about him turning up out of nowhere. D’you get me?”

Jack hums, trying to sound sympathetic, but truthfully, he doesn’t get it. Bittle had gone to Poots’ apartment to surprise him in what had been a difficult week of pre-season, with everyone focussing on building themselves to peak performance in preparation for their home opener in a few weeks’ time. If Jack had been feeling the strain, there’s no doubt a rookie like Poots would be feeling it too. And in the face of that stress, Bittle had made him food. Was showing support and wearing his team merch. It was sweet. Caring.

                  

To Jack, it seems ideal.

 

“Is it serious?” The motivation in the question is lost even to Jack. He grimaces at his countertop as soon as the words leave his mouth. Poots, for his part, makes an answering sound that strikes Jack as very blasé.

“Maybe? I don’t know. I really like him.”

“Okay, good.” Jack is suddenly glad for his glass of water. “When you’re ready to tell everyone else, like I said, I’ve got your back. You should let Georgia know first, because she’ll have a plan for Bittle coming to family skate and stuff, but the boys should be fine.”

Poots laughs in a startled way, almost derisive.

“Fuck, man. I’m not telling anyone else.”

“Poots, they’re my team. I can guarantee that no one will say anything or do anything to you. We want you to feel welcome. I’ll go with you, even, and we can talk to George and Marty and Thirdy all together. I know they’d all want to meet Bittle.” Jack doesn’t mention how he knows for a fact they’ll be supportive. That seems like a conversation for a different day.

“Shit, Jack. No way. No one else can know this. If it got out, I’d be completely fucked.”

“The team won’t tell,” Jack assures him, hesitant, careful. “Whenever you’re ready, I can help you.”

“No, fuck, it’s bad enough that you know. I mean, you’re being great, thank you and everything, but – no. I can’t be that guy. No fucking way.”

 

Jack bites down on a swell of defensive responses, trying to remind himself that Poots is only twenty-two and is, understandably, scared shitless. Jack coaxes himself back into being soothing and supportive. He bites down on his urge to ask, _what guy can’t you be?_

 

“Alright. Whatever you want, that’s fine.”

Poots’ sigh of relief is audible.

 

Later, when Jack is in bed and staring up at his own ceiling, he remembers the way Bittle had gently smiled at the spinach puffs. Jack remembers the flush in his cheeks as Jack complimented him, peachy tint across the rounds of his cheeks and the upturned tip of his nose. Jack remembers the way his deft fingers had worked over the layers of pastry, and the fluidity with which he had moved around the kitchen. He remembers the tone around Bittle’s chirps, teasing and bright. The open friendliness with which he had given to Jack and, most of all, the sense of calm he had felt while listening to Bittle prattle on as they cooked.

 

He does sleep, eventually, feeling the emptiness of his bed as though something was taken.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Unwittingly (unwillingly), Jack becomes something of a sounding board for Poots’ relationship grievances. He frequently says things to Jack, things like, “I’m Skyping with Bitty later,” or, “Bitty baked me bread,” or, “Bitty texted me good luck for today,” and his tone will be all wrong. Slightly joking, like it should be accompanied by an eye-roll and a derisive shrug. Sometimes, it is. The reply Jack usually gives is an earnest and deep-felt, “That’s nice of him.”

 

Once, however, he says, “You’re a lucky guy, Poots.”

 

Poots, as he is apparently wont to do when talking about Bittle, makes a non-committal grunt, and continues tying his trainers.

“He’s cool, most of the time. He’s pretty hot too, I guess, when he’s not –” he cuts himself off, and jerks his gaze up to Jack with wide eyes. “Shit, _sorry_ Jack, I didn’t mean to be all – I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Jack shakes his head in vague disagreement, slightly dazed and honestly stuck on the ‘ _pretty hot too, I guess_.’ It hadn’t escaped Jack’s attention, during their meeting, that Bittle was attractive. Doe-eyed and golden-toned, with an adorable ski-slope of a nose and a frankly plush-looking mouth. His body had been compact and hard-lined, thighs suggestive of a significant amount of power. There was the easy and confident way he moved, the skill in his hands. His expressiveness, and blinding smiles.

 

‘ _Pretty hot’_ just didn’t quite cover it.

 

“I don’t get what you mean,” is out of Jack’s mouth before he can stop it. Poots is still watching him with a wary look, and when he speaks it’s low and apologetic.

“I know it can be _weird_ to hear another guy talk about guys as being hot or whatever. Like, I get it makes things awkward.”

“No, Poots, I don’t _care_ , you can talk about whatever you want, just – what do you mean about Bittle?”

 

Poots gives him a vaguely quizzical look before apparently deciding Jack’s effusive dismissal of ‘weirdness’ is par for the course. He returns his attention to his shoelace.

“Just, you know. Sometimes he’s just so, like… gay. I mean, we’re a thing, obviously, but some of the stuff he wears and whatever – the short-shorts and tank tops and shit. It’s just. Girly or something. Like he’d be super-hot if he’d just butch it up a bit, y’know?”

“No.” Jack says it firm, decisive. There’s no point beating around the bush.

Poots grins at him.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t get it. It’s hard to explain if you’re not gay, but it’s like. A whole deal, I guess.”

 

To stop himself saying something rude, something which would probably shatter the firm comradery he’s managed to build with Poots, Jack zips up his duffle bag.

“Come on; let’s grab some lunch.”

 

* * *

 

When it rolls around, their home opener is an emboldening riot of blue, filling Jack with the fever of the game in a way the preseason just hadn’t. He’s maybe a little overly fierce in his warmup, maybe a little showboat-y, but a home crowd fills him with positivity like no other. He’s running a drill with Poots when he spots a familiar head of blond behind the glass.

“Hey, Bittle’s here?”

Poots casts a look over his shoulder to where Jack’s eyes are directed, and turns back with a slightly tight smile.

“Yeah, I told him it would be fine. Y’know, with the rest of the team here as well.”

 

Indeed, Bittle is part of a line of Falconers shirts worn by college-age guys, all shouting and banging on the glass. Jack grins at Poots and shoves his shoulder good-naturedly.

“Wave to your friends, man.”

 

Poots does raise a hand briefly in their direction, and Jack can’t help but laugh as they go wild. He decides to put his own into their frenzy; he skates purposefully at the glass and skids to a stop right in front of Bittle. Without pausing to think about it, he presses a curled fist to the glass. Bittle takes the hint and presses his own to the other side. Jack grins at him, and the smile he gets in return comes through what must be a delighted laugh, unfortunately drowned in the simmering roar of the crowd. Jack chances another glance as he skates away, only to see the moustachioed guy on Bittle’s left ruffling his hair with an excitement close to violence.

 

Poots throws him a grateful smile the next time they pass each other, muttering “Thanks, Jack,” with emphatic appreciation.

 

Momentarily, Jack feels the hot sting of guilt.

 

* * *

 

 

Post-match, Jack is loose and happy and _good_. He can’t keep the smile off his face, can’t keep from hugging everyone he passes, can’t keep from whooping intermittently. He’d had two goals and an assist, and they’d finished up three ahead overall. It’s a strong win, a _solid_ win, and he says so as he sweeps Poots into a forceful one-armed hug.

“Some _nice_ ice time tonight, eh kid?”                                                  

 

Poots makes a noise of assent and claps him on the back before stepping away. The look on his face is familiar to Jack; the conflict of happiness at the win, and disappointment that he wasn’t a part of it. Jack lays a hand on his helmet and leans in, fixing him with as earnest a look as he can muster.

“You’re really moving the puck, Poots. Your possession’s been way up these past couple games.”

 

Poots apparently hears it as platitudes, his smile coming out dry and forced. Jack jostles his shoulder, slaps his bucket, before stepping away.

“Your friends coming back here? They’ll want to celebrate with you, for sure.”

Poots’ eyebrows meet in the middle, confusion clear.

“Is that allowed?”

“Of course, kiddo. You can bring back whoever you want, mostly. It’s not like every game is your season debut. C’mon, let’s get them back.”

 

A quick word with a security guard, and within fifteen minutes a hefty number of Poots’ college teammates are flooding the doorway of the locker room. With war-cries of his name, and other wordless hollering, Poots is swept into several bear-like hugs. The moustachioed guy who had been sitting next to Bitty is particularly vocal as he shouts that he feels “like a fuckin’ proud father.” With rounds of noogies and headlocks, the Falconers go about their business and largely cast mildly amused glances in the huddle’s direction.

 

To the side of the bundle of his friends, Bittle stands inconspicuous and quiet, with his arms wrapped around his waist. He’s smiling, soft and glowing, radiating a sort of calm pride. Jack sidles up to him, and knocks their shoulders together.

“Hey.”

“Oh, Jack! Hi. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. Yeah, we pulled together well tonight. You came to a good one.”

“ _We_ ,” Bittle scoffs. “Two goals and an assist? You carried that game and you know it.”

“Just doing my part.”

 

Bittle smirks up at him, and Jack’s returned smile feels near a beam on his face.

 

“Have you spoken to him yet?”

Bittle’s gaze shifts back to the huddle of Samwell students, currently giving a loud play-by-play of all Poots’ ice time, filtered with much swearing from Mr. Moustache and a lot of reverent “ _bro_ ”s from a towering blond guy and his sharp-cheekboned companion.

 

“No, I’ll talk to him later. The boys haven’t seen him in a while, they all need to catch up.”

There’s something lofty in Bittle’s tone, almost like he’s trying to convince himself. Jack nudges his shoulder again.

“ _Hey_. You’re allowed to talk to him. The rest of your friends are.”

Bittle frowns a little, still resolutely watching the group.

“It’s different.”

“They’ve all hugged him.” Jack knows he’s being impertinent, but still riding on the adrenaline rush of the win, his brain and its logic seem entirely unconnected to his mouth. Bitty recognizes his deliberate cheek, too: he makes an impatient sound, like _tchah!_

“It’s _different_. I’m gay; they all know I’m gay, it’s like, really _really_ obvious I’m gay. If I hug him, it’ll seem like… it’s just different, okay?”

Jack hums in a way that they are both aware is insolent.

“Have you hugged the other guys before?”

“That’s not the _point_ , Jack Zimmermann, and you know it.”

“I don’t know, Bittle. Seems like a pretty lame excuse to me.”

 

Quickly, before Bittle can protest, Jack turns and wraps him up in his arms. It only lasts a moment, and is more of a squeeze than a hug, but Jack punctuates it by rubbing a broad hand shortly down Bittle’s spine. He steps back and offers his fist.

 

Tentatively, Bittle bumps it with his own, for the second time that night.

“Thanks for coming, Bittle.”

 

Before Bittle can make any reply beyond wide eyes and a stunned chuckle, Jack edges his way past the still-raucous Samwell group and joins Tater at his cubby across the room.

“Nice assist, hey Zimmboni?”

“Ta, Tater.”

“This small blond boy, is cute, no?”

Jack levels him with something close to a glare.  
“Don’t, Tater. Don’t even try that with me.”

“I see you fist-bump, through glass. You hug him. You like him. Shows on face.”

“Yeah, well. He’s got a boyfriend.”

 

Tater seems to find this hilarious, laugh echoed in several resounding and heavy slaps to Jack’s shoulder blade.

“Hard luck, Zimmboni. Poor Captain, is forever alone.”

“Yeah, I’m glad you’re getting joy out of it.” Jack manages some sort of poor imitation of a smile, punching Tater good-naturedly in the arm.

 

He sneaks a look back to where he knows Bittle is still standing, and is startled when Bittle is already looking at him in return, brown eyes soft and mouth gently smiling, just like at the spinach puffs.

 

Jack smiles back.

 

* * *

 

 

Jack doesn’t think it’s unreasonable to want Poots to stay silent when he’s flat on his back trying to bench-press two-hundred-and-fifty pounds and Poots is supposed to be spotting him. Jack does think, wholeheartedly, that this should be a moment where it is acknowledged he probably can’t reply, and as such is a useless conversation partner. These realities, however, seem to be a concept beyond Poots’ field of understanding.

 

“He wanted me to go to Samwell’s opening game. He was all like, ‘Shitty’s going so it won’t be just you, there’s a kegster afterwards, it’ll be fun, blah blah _blah_.’ Like, he totally doesn’t get it, man.”

 

Through a grunt and a lift, Jack manages, “What’s the problem?”

“It’d be weird, wouldn’t it? Turning up at a college game. Like, I play for the NHL and people kind of know me. It’d be really obvious if I turned up there to see him play.”

Jack tries to ignore it. He forces out two more reps before he’s muttering, “down,” and allowing Poots to help him guide the weights back into the rest. He sits up and swivels around on the bench.

 

“Listen, buddy.” Jack silently hopes Poots can’t hear the extent of the aggression in his voice, or else chalks it up to exertion from the weights. “You going to see your college team play is not going to look suspicious to anybody. They came to see you, didn’t they? And, what, you said Shitty was going too? Who’s that?”

“The guy who came last time, the one with the moustache. He’s like, Bitty’s best friend.”

“So you go with another ex-student to see the team you both used to play on, and then you go to a party with your friends and former teammates. And hey, you might even get a chance to spend some time alone with Bittle while everyone else is distracted.”

 

Poots scoffs a laugh and says, “Yeah, like that would even matter.”

 

Jack grits his teeth momentarily, exhales sharply through his nose.

“Why wouldn’t it matter?”

Poots makes that noise that’s been irritating Jack so much lately, the careless one.

“He’s really weird about sex and stuff, like every time I try to touch him he gets all nervous and pushes me away. It’s getting fucking exhausting, man. I don’t know what to do.”

“Have you tried talking to him?” Jack says it slowly, full of condescension, not even trying to hide behind the ruse of recovering from the weights.

“He won’t talk about it, man. He gets all embarrassed.”

 

Jack can’t reasonably respond to that without giving himself away, because his mind is already spinning scenarios in which he is in Poots’ position. He imagines exactly how he would talk to Bittle. Exactly how caring and careful he would be, exactly what kind of boundaries they would set, exactly what he would do to make Bittle feel comfortable.

 

He swings his leg over the bench and crosses the room to get the spray to wipe it down.

“Poots, you should go to the game.”

 

By way of reply, Poots makes that noise again, and Jack is near the end of his rope.

 

* * *

 

 

Poots doesn’t go to the game.

 

The way Jack finds this out is, they’re out at a bar with the team, and Poots leaves his phone on the table as he goes to the bathroom, and then it starts vibrating and lights up with the name _SHITTY_.

 

Jack knows too well the annoying dance of trying to return a missed call. He answers.

 

“Fitz, brah, they tore shit up tonight! You should’ve fuckin’ seen it. And Bitty! Bits, the fucking legend, he fucking _checked someone_ in the second period –”

“Um, hi.”

 

There’s a moment of silence in which Jack struggles to distinguish between the sound of the bar and the sound of the party Shitty is probably at.

“You’re not Fitz.”

“No, ah, he’s in the bathroom. This is Jack Zimmermann.”

 

The revelation doesn’t faze Shitty for a moment, his immediate eagerness at having Jack on the line being almost comforting. He talks like he’s known Jack for years.

“Jack Zimmermann, you filthy fucking beaut! That one-timer last night against the Schooners was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, holy shit.”

Despite himself, Jack grins.

“Samwell had their game tonight?”

“Shit yeah they did. It was _beautiful_ , too. And my guy, my little Bitty, he’s always had this _thing_ about checking, and brah, he fuckin’ checked a guy! I totally lost my shit, hit a guy in the face with my fries. Nearly got thrown out.”

“Bittle checked someone? Good for him.”

“Yeah, dude, it’s a really big deal. He’s worked really hard on it, and like… well, it wasn’t like he fucking crashed into the guy, but he nudged him a bit. Never been so fucking proud of him.”

 

Absurdly, Jack is proud too. He doesn’t know the full story, but the relief of overcoming a mental block is familiar to him. He makes a silent note to congratulate Bittle, before he remembers: he doesn’t actually talk to Bittle. He only talks to Poots.

 

He’s pulled back to the moment by Shitty clearing his throat.

“Ah, bro? Do you mind if I ask – where are you right now?”

“We’re all out at a bar. Trying to socialize the rookies without letting them get into too much trouble.”

“Oh, cool. Cool, cool.” There’s something in the way Shitty says it that sounds hesitant, like he’s holding back on some additional comment.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, man, it’s just – Fitz said you guys were having a late training session. That’s why he couldn’t make the game. You, uh – you didn’t have a training session, did you?”

 

Jack pauses. Throwing his rookie under the bus with his friends seems like a dick move. But, being honest, he still disapproves of Poots’ decision not to go to the game. And he likes Shitty, even if he hasn’t had more than this conversation with him; he doesn’t want to set himself up as the kind of guy who lies.

“No, we didn’t.”

 

Shitty’s muttered “oh, fuck” is so low it’s barely audible above the noise of his party and the bar. Jack barely manages out “I’m sure he just –” before Poots is dropping back into the seat at his side.

“What’s up, Jack?”

“You’ve got a phone call. It’s Shitty.” Jack is more than aware of how stiff he sounds, how awkwardly he passes the phone over. Just as stiff, he pushes himself to standing and weaves his way through the crowd to the bar. A look over his shoulder shows Poots is frowning and frantically hissing something into his phone.

 

Jack needs a drink.

 

* * *

 

Poots is avoiding him.

 

That much is clear whenever Jack nears him and a pained expression crosses his face before he hastily joins another conversation. When he picks up his lunch and outright leaves the nook when Jack enters. When he goes white as a sheet when Jack corners him in the training room one day, and demands, “What’s wrong?”

 

Direct is always good. Blunt. Poots, however, apparently disagrees. He chokes on seemingly nothing at all. Jack thumps a hand across his back as he recovers. When his speech does come, it comes as a wheeze.

“N-nothing.”

“Poots, come on. What is it?”

“I’m sorry, Jack.” He whispers it in a rush, mortification clear in every word. Jack frowns.

“What for?”

“For making you nearly lie to Shitty. I mean, I shouldn’t have lied to him in the first place, and then you wouldn’t have had to hear that I… did lie. It was dumb, I should’ve just told him something else.”

Jack feels a bit sorry for him; he pats his back again, this time consolingly.

“How did it all turn out?”

 

“Shitty was like, so mad. He’s really into like, telling the truth to your friends and not hiding things or whatever, and it was just like. We both graduated last year, but it was like my dad was mad at me or something. He even stopped swearing while he was telling me off.” He looks at his knees, seeming a little shell-shocked. Jack sits on the bench beside him.

“Did you work it out, though?”

“I guess. I mean, I apologized for lying, and he said it was okay. But he said everyone was pretty disappointed I wasn’t there. He said –” Poots sighs, and scrapes a hand through his hair, pushing it up in a wild way. He looks suddenly boyish, young. “He said Bitty was _really_ upset. Like, he didn’t say that to Shitty, but Shitty said he was really quiet at the party and just hung around Lardo the whole night. Didn’t dance or anything.” He pauses, rubs his palms across his thighs in a decisive way. “I’m going to make it up to him.”

 

He sounds firm, sure, and Jack’s guilt once again roils in the depths of his gut.

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

Come Monday morning skate, and Poots is visibly chipper. Positively giddy. He’s joking and slapping backs, throwing chirps around and skating through his drills with a light-heartedness that hasn’t been there all through pre-season.

 

Marty skids to a stop next to Jack where he’s observing a drill near the boards. When he speaks, it’s in their shared mother tongue, tone mild and inquiring.

« _Poots has pulled it together._ »

Jack looks over to where Poots is doing stick-work with a group of guys including Tater and Thirdy. His focus is clear, even from across rink.

« _Yeah, he had some personal stuff. Looks like he’s got it sorted._ »

« _He’s been a little inconsistent._ »

« _Eh, he’s a rookie. Nerves and all that._ »

 

Marty peers at him, and Jack raises a defensive eyebrow. Marty chuckles.

« _Jack, I didn’t think you knew it was possible to be nervous on the ice._ »

Jack snorts, accepts Marty’s back-slap, and skates off into his group.

 

It’s a day of briefings and strategy, seemingly endless sessions and a lot of tape to watch. At the end of it all, exhausted with information, Jack ends up sitting in the nook with Marty and Thirdy and cups of tea, none of them speaking. Guy has already gone home to his wife. Jack is expecting to be left alone any minute; both his co-captains have their own families as well. Jack muses for a moment on his starkly empty apartment.

 

Maybe he should get a dog.

 

Thirdy breaks the quiet with a bone-deep sigh.

“Man, I’m starving. Let’s get dinner.”

“Shouldn’t you guys go home?”

Jack should go home too, really. He could steam some chicken and broccoli. Watch a documentary. Be asleep by nine thirty.

“Gabby’s taken the kid to visit her parents,” Marty supplies.

“Carrie does the dance class and karate runs on Mondays. I’d be going home to an empty house anyway. Why else did you think we were sitting around drinking tea with your single ass?”

 

Jack huffs a laugh and downs the rest of his tea.

“Alright, I’ll accept your pity. What do you want to eat?”

They settle on a burger grill that’s newly opened and isn’t far from Jack’s apartment. It is, obviously, a more enticing prospect than unseasoned chicken. The agreement is to meet there in half an hour; Thirdy insists he needs a shower. They’re about to go their separate ways when Poots ambles into the nook, wrestling with a water bottle.

“Hey, Poots! What are you still doing here, kiddo?”

 

Poots visibly jumps at Marty’s voice, freezing deer-in-the-headlights at the sight of his three captains all staring at him.

“Oh. Hey, guys.”

“You should head home, get some rest. It’s getting late.”

“Uh, yeah, I was just – uh, getting a sandwich or something.”

“You haven’t eaten? We’re going to grab burgers, just come with us.”

 

The astonished delight on Poots’ face is palpable. Jack can empathize; he was also pretty self-satisfied the first time he was invited to dinner with his captains.

“Yeah, sure! Thanks! Oh, but, um –” he falters, and Jack has a wild hallucinatory moment in which Poots says, ‘ _Can my boyfriend come too?_ ’

 

What Poots actually says is, “I got a lift with Snowy this morning, but he has to leave in a minute, I think he’s got something he has to – I don’t know if I can ask him to drive me to a restaurant.”

Jack feels vaguely light-headed with relief. He doesn’t bother to interrogate why, just makes a stilted attempt to cover his daze by blurting out, “I can drive you.”

“Thanks, Jack! Awesome. Okay, uh – I just gotta make a call… and I’ll find Snowy and let him know what’s going on. I’ll meet you at your car?”

 

The entire drive to the burger joint, Poots is nearly vibrating out of his seat. It’s a bit of an ego boost, really, to see how much stock Poots apparently puts in the approval of the captains. He’s mostly quiet, but when he does speak, it’s unavoidably earnest.

“Jack, I just wanna say, thank you so much. For like, inviting me tonight. And just for everything else, I guess. Being so nice to my friends… and to Bitty. Like, you don’t have to be, I get that he can be a lot to handle sometimes, but. Yeah. You’ve been really great about everything.”

 

Jack is glowering at the road through the windshield, and is vaguely thankful for the dark. He wants to say something about Bittle being nice, about how he finds his enthusiasm frankly charming, about how Jack can’t understand how anyone wouldn’t be completely and utterly charmed by him.

 

Jack is saved from himself by their arrival at the burger joint. He placates Poots with a borderline-curt, “No problem, Poots. Any time,” and resolves to order the spiciest burger on offer, just to knock some sense into himself.

 

* * *

 

Post-dinner, Poots drones endlessly all through their car ride to his apartment. He relays everything Jack didn’t know about Samwell, about his teammates and the team manager, unfortunately nicknamed ‘Lardo’. He tells Jack about the team house – “It’s called the Haus, like in German” – and the kegsters thrown in it. Jack finds himself becoming increasingly intrigued by the stories of these people he doesn’t know, can see the appeal of all of them as friends. It seems, now, he has more than one reason to be envious of Poots.

 

Pulling up outside of Poots’ building has Jack reflecting, distantly, on the few years he spent in Montréal earning back his standing as a halfway desirable player. There are alternatives he can’t bring himself to consider.

 

“Do you mind coming up? Bitty keeps nagging me about you, he has a thing he wants to give you or something.”

Snapped out of his own head, Jack turns to stare at him across the gearshift.

“Bittle’s here?”

“Yeah, he came down last night to visit. He’s catching the late train back.”

“You didn’t have to come to dinner with us, Poots. You probably had plans with him. Shit, you didn’t have to feel pressured.”

The concept of Bittle, sitting around all day waiting for his boyfriend to get home, grates against something in the back of Jack’s mind. Poots is already out of the car. He leans down to look at Jack through the open door, brow knitted in confusion.

“Jack, it’s fine. Bitty understands. I wanted to come with you guys.”

 

Guilt seems to be Jack’s primary emotion these days.

 

The thing that does absolutely nothing to assuage it is when Poots calls out Bittle’s name when they walk in the door, and Bitty replies, “Oh, hi honey!” in a way that sounds clogged and falsely delighted. They find him in the kitchen, wiping down the benchtop, and Jack’s fears are confirmed: Bittle’s eyes are red, and his cheeks have that puffy-yet-pinched look that can only come from crying.

 

Poots, amazingly, doesn’t seem to notice this, simply crossing the room to give Bittle a greeting kiss. Bittle leans up into it, a little desperate, lightly gripping on to Poots’ jacket. Jack is put distantly in the mind of a child clinging to an adult’s leg, or a puppy scratching at a door. When Poots pulls away, Bittle is smiling, but it’s a brittle thing.

 

“I, um,” Bittle clears his throat, and pats Poots on the chest before stepping away. “I wrapped up what I cooked tonight, so you can have it for dinner tomorrow. And the night after, because there’s enough for two!” He laughs airily, too high, too trilling. “It’s just some, um, jambalaya and a salad. And I just cut up some fruit for dessert, because I know the pastry is getting a bit… too much.”

“Thanks, babe. See, that wasn’t so hard, right? Be right back.”

Poots slopes out of his kitchen and into the hall, leaving Jack alone with Bittle. Bittle, who is hugging his waist yet again and making Jack want to cradle him close for forever.

 

“I’m so sorry, Bittle. I had no idea you were visiting. I wouldn’t have asked him to dinner if I’d known.”

Bittle forces out a damp smile.  
“Don’t be silly, Jack. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine; you’re upset.”

“I’m _not_ , I’m just bein’ ridiculous. It was nice of y’all to ask him, he’s been so worried none of you are happy with how he’s going.”

 

Jack leans down and rests his arms on the counter, putting him level with Bittle’s eyes. He doesn’t say anything, just looks. His mouth quirks at the corner in a way that is supposed to be comforting. He feels his own gaze soften the longer he looks at Bittle and Bittle looks back.

 

“Dinner smells great, for what it’s worth.”

Bittle rolls his eyes jokingly, scoffing a little, but his glibness dissolves quickly into a gasp.

“I have something for you!”

Bittle whips around from the bench and takes a plain white box from where it’s waiting on the cooktop. He lays it down in front of Jack with a self-satisfied smile and a slight flourish. Jack raises his eyebrows.

“A cake?”

“A _pie_. I made it for you, as a thank you. And, well, from what you said when we made those spinach puffs together, it seems like you don’t get a lot of homey goodness in what you’re eating.”

 

Gingerly, Jack lifts the lid on the box. The pie inside bears a perfect criss-cross of lattice, the pastry looking crisp and golden, with a bright sheen to it. He can smell the sharp tang of apples, and closer to the surface, the familiar earthy sweetness of –

“Maple?”

“That’s right! Good nose, Mr. Zimmermann. I know you’re Canadian, so I wanted to throw something a little special together, just for you. Maple-crusted apple.”

“Looks amazing, Bittle.”

 

Jack closes the box and turns his smile back to Bittle, watching with increasing awe as his cheeks grow progressively rosier under the fondness of Jack’s gaze.

 

“Bitty, you got everything? Your train’s soon.”

Poots’ voice precedes him to the kitchen, and when the man himself follows, he’s wearing sleep pants and a Falconers hoodie. Bitty’s eyebrows climb to his hairline.

“Oh, right! I guess I’ll…” He looks carefully at what Poots is wearing, and his expression takes on a resigned quality. “I guess I’ll call an Uber, then.”

 

“I can drive you.”

It’s out of Jack’s mouth before he can second-guess himself, before he can check his eagerness, and well before he can even give Poots a chance to rectify what is, frankly, a disaster.

 

Bittle looks back to Jack, blush in full force, and starts to stammer out, “Jack, you don’t need to,” before Jack is cutting across him.

“It’s no trouble; the station’s on my route, anyway.” He just can’t stop himself tonight, apparently.

“Hey, thanks man.” Poots claps him on the shoulder, and Jack gives him an approximation of a smile in return.

 

Bittle slings a duffle bag over his shoulder and hugs Poots goodbye – no kiss, Jack notes – and Jack scoops the pie box off the counter. Bittle trails after him out of the apartment; Poots doesn’t follow. The moment the door closes behind them, Bittle lets out a well-settled sigh. Wordlessly, Jack reaches out and tugs his duffle from his shoulder before hefting it over his own. Bittle murmurs a grateful little “thank you,” and shuffles next to Jack with downcast eyes.

 

The first few minutes of the car ride pass in silence, Jack sneaking looks out of the corner of his eye at Bittle huddled in the passenger seat. He tries not to get distracted by the play of shifting streetlights across Bittle’s face, of it dipping into the jut of his jawline and glowing across his cheekbones.

 

“What time’s your train?”

Bittle shifts in his seat, pulling his phone from his pocket. “In… forty minutes.”

“We’ll be there in ten. We could’ve stayed at Poots’ a bit longer.”

“I’m not sure I wanted to.” He says it so low, Jack is almost certain he wasn’t meant to hear it.

 

“I’m really sorry, Bittle. Tonight was all my fault. Well, Marty and Thirdy too, but they don’t know it.”

Bittle sighs, and in his periphery Jack makes him out twisting sideways to face the driver’s seat fully.

“It’s not just tonight, though. Can I – Jack, I’m sorry to do this, but I just. I don’t have anyone else to talk to?” There’s an uptick at the end, small and uncertain. Jack glances to him, briefly, and lands directly on Bittle’s earnestly sad eyes. “Can I talk to you?”

Jack hopes his nod doesn’t seem too emphatic.

 

“I just feel constantly like… like I’m doing something wrong, or I’m annoying him or something. It’s like I never know what he wants, and when I think I know, I get it wrong. Tonight’s not the first time that’s happened; we’ll make plans for dinner, and then he’ll call and say he’s going out with y’all instead – oh _Lord_ , I’m not blaming you!” Jack had opened his mouth to apologize again, but immediately snaps it shut at Bittle’s interjection. “I just wish I knew how to make him happy. I thought I had, yesterday, but today he just…”

Bittle lifts his hands and drops them into his lap again, a plaintive gesture of defeat.

“What did you do yesterday?” As soon as the question’s out of his mouth, the pieces fall into place in Jack’s brain. Bittle staying overnight, for what Jack thinks was the first time. Poots’ elated morning skate. “Oh. Um.”

 

Another glance at Bittle shows that even in the yellow of the street lights, there is a faint pinkness dusted high across his cheeks and nose. His eyes are downcast, focused on his hands in his lap.

 

Jack pulls into the station car park and turns off the car. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel, honestly unsure of how to salvage the openness that had been between them a few moments ago.

 

“So, uh. What’s your major?”

Bittle jerks his head up to look at Jack, incredulous, and snorts out a laugh that quickly dissolves into something close to a cackle. It only takes a moment before Jack’s laughing too, shaking his head at his own awkwardness. Bittle’s laughter subsides eventually, and he puts his cheek on the headrest to look at Jack across the centre console.

 

“American Cultural Studies, which basically involves me taking any and every subject with the word ‘food’ in the title. And this semester, also French, because language requirements are the bane of my existence.”

“ _Mais le français, c’est la langue de la cuisine._ ”

Bittle covers his face in his hands and groans.

“Oh my god, I only understood like two of those words, and one of them is the same in English.”

Jack chuckles.

“Maybe you just need help from an expert.”

Bittle peeks at him from between his fingers, eyes narrow and slightly suspicious.

“I can help you out some, if you want. Flash cards, or conversation. Or I can just drone at you until you’re even _dreaming_ in French.” Jack doesn’t know what’s gotten in to him tonight. He feels obnoxious. Brazen.

 

With the way Bittle’s now looking at him with wide, appreciative eyes and a slightly stunned smile, it seems worth it.

“You would do that? I don’t want to put you out.”

“You wouldn’t be. At most, it’d be what? An hour every couple days? Hardly anything. And besides…” Brazen has been working well for him so far; it seems a shame to quit so early. “I like talking to you.”

“Oh. Well, then.”

 

Bittle seems to have unlimited currency of smiles, each one slightly different, all individually thrilling. The one he gives to Jack now could be called _please_ , or even mildly _preening_. Jack decides it’s one of his most favourite ones so far.

 

Bittle puts his number into Jack’s phone, and when he gets out of the car to board his train, Jack is left staring at the bee emojis Bittle had put next to his name and wishing he’d just offered to drive all the way to Samwell.

 

* * *

 

A morning text message from Bittle has Jack grinning at his phone like a lunatic.

 

> 07:13  
>  _Bonjour Monsieur Zimmermann!_

Close to five minutes pass before Jack realizes he should make a reply.

 

> 07:17  
>  Bonjour Bittle. Tu fé quoi ojd ?

 

> 07:19  
>  _omg_

> 07:19  
>  En français svp

 

What Jack gets in return is a string of crying face emojis. Jack laughs to himself, smugly satisfied, and lays his phone on the table next to his breakfast. He’s tempted to send Bittle a photo of the meal, which – even Jack will admit – is a bit excessive: they’ve got a game that night, so he’s loading. He’s got about four scrambled eggs and two lamb sausages, in addition to his green juice and fruit. He thoughtfully arranges the plates on the table, and trials a few different angles through his phone camera. He gets a nice snap, and immediately sends it off to Bittle.

 

There’s a delay of a few minutes before Bittle’s reply comes through, enough for Jack to make a start on devouring his feast. When the response pings in, it’s as three texts at once.

 

> 7:27  
>  _Mon dieu!_

> 7:27  
>  _I confess I googled that_

> 7:27  
>  _Also I knew you could cook!_

There’s also a number of clapping-hands emojis. Jack realizes he’s going to have to raise his texting game if he wants to keep up with Bittle. He’s tempted to feign ignorance of the meaning of the hands, if only to invite chirping and lengthen this conversation. As it is, though, time is getting away from him: he needs to get on the road if he’s planning on being on time for morning skate. He contemplates what to say for a moment, and decides on the basic truth.

 

> 7:29  
>  I have finish getting ready to go to the rink. Can I text you later?

 

The moments before Bittle’s response seem suspended, leaving Jack second- and triple-guessing whether he’s overstepped his purview. Well, if he’s being honest, he _definitely_ has – and not even with the texting. The question is whether Bittle has realized it.

 

> 7:30  
>  _Of course! Have fun out there :)_

It’s just four words of encouragement, but it makes something in Jack’s gut _stutter_. Maybe it’s that it’s not ‘go out there and win’ or ‘do your best’ or ‘score one for me’ – all things Jack has had said to him by people close and closer in the past. Instead, what Bittle is asking him to do is just enjoy himself. To have a _happy_ game. It starts right then, with Jack savouring every mouthful of his breakfast.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

Talking to Bittle, it does something for Jack.

 

They start Skyping once a week, the time unpredictable because of Jack’s schedule. The first few times, Jack just helps Bittle conjugate his verbs and re-structure sentences. He stifles a grin as Bittle struggles through an introductory speech he has to make for class, his _m’apelle_ coming out as _ma-apple_ , and all the letters that should be silent bleeding through in that sweet Southern twang. He chirps Bittle for picking up all the food words first.

 

Communicating with Bittle also opens Jack up to something he hasn’t had to deal with before: an intermittent and drawn-out conversation via text. Jack has been one previously to only text if he needed something, or to check in with someone. Bittle, apparently, uses it as a running commentary of his day. It’s not that he’s relentless, or obnoxious, just that he pops up with comforting regularity, a gentle buzz in Jack’s pocket.

 

Jack is not always able to reply. The hours that pass with Bittle going unanswered leave a slight distaste in Jack’s mouth, and though Bittle never seems put out at a delay, Jack wrestles with the stone of guilt in his stomach. This feeling is far from assuaged when he settles on his couch after a game and a day of not checking his messages at all, to find four new notifications from Bittle. There are also two from his father, probably in reference to the scrum that had formed midway through first period, but Jack prioritizes.

 

> 23:47  
>  Sorry Bittle, I wasn’t looking at my phone today. Didn’t mean to ignore you.

 

The reply, despite the time of night, comes through within moments. It startles Jack a little, as he had lain back on the couch and plopped his phone onto his chest. It’s a moment before he remembers: Bittle was probably awake to watch the game, because of Poots.

 

Jack holds his phone over his face to read Bittle’s message.

 

> 23:48  
>  _No problem Jack! I get it. You don’t have to reply if you don’t have time. Sometimes Fitz doesn’t even at all. That boy._ (◔‿◔)

 

The little face with the rolling eyes seems to smile fondly up at him, doting exasperation. Jack stares at the characters on his screen. The black dots of the eyes start to look dead.

 

He shakes himself. It’s just an emoticon.

 

> 23:49  
>  Still, I feel rude. I’ll try to reply when I get the chance eh

 

He’s just being honest. Well, as barely honest as he can be. It’s what his therapist used to call ‘managing expectations’: being clear with others about what he can give to them. Although he wants to give Bittle more – and isn’t that a sobering thought – he can’t make any promises.

 

> 23:50  
>  _Oh you really don’t have to! I’m probably being annoying haha I just cant stop. I can only tweet/text the team gc/text Fitz so much. Sorry for making you the newest victim of my chatterbox predilections._

 

There’s a winky-face emoji. Jack feels warmth introducing itself to his cheeks. His thumbs are hovering over the keyboard, the words stuck in their metaphorical throats, when another message pings through.

 

> 23:50  
>  _I actually can really stop if I’m annoying you. I just think of things or see things that remind me of people and I need to let them know. Sorry if it’s a lot to handle :(_

 

Jack wonders, momentarily, how even being unable to hear Bittle’s voice or see his face, he can still feel his loneliness so palpably. Also, there’s something in the last sentence that doesn’t quite sit right. Even though Jack is truthfully not wholly acquainted with Bittle, it still doesn’t ring as something he would say. It seems, almost, as an echo of something that’s been said to him before.

 

Jack takes what he feels is an educated guess about who might have said it. He can’t type his response fast enough.

 

> 23:51  
>  I can’t say I’ll always be able to reply straight away, but you can text me whenever you want.

 

It doesn’t seem enough, really. He reads it back a couple times after hitting ‘send,’ and despite the bubbles popping up to indicate Bittle is typing, he starts to add to his reply. The bubbles disappear.

 

> 23:51  
>  I like getting texts from you.

 

Jack’s face floods with raging heat, well beyond the slight warmth of earlier, as soon as he hits ‘send.’ The word _delivered_ appearing beneath the message fills him with honest to god dread. It’s too much. It’s too obvious. He’s officially crossed a line of being supportive and friendly, and is encroaching on something he truthfully has no business in. He can feel the twitch of regrets, the scraping of anxiety, itching in the back of his throat.

 

His mouth feels dry.

 

The bubble re-appears. It only takes a moment, and then a blushing-smiley face pops up. The relief is not what Jack would call instant, but it does unclench some of the tightness in his neck. He takes a few deep breaths, counting in increments.

 

> 23:52  
>  _You’re going to regret saying that, Jack Zimmermann!_

> 23:52  
>  _#cantstoptexting #wontstoptexting_

Jack laughs softly, and though it even sounds a little strangled in the silence of his apartment, it serves as more relief. It’s probably something he needs to think about again – managing expectations. His own, this time. He rests his hands on his chest a moment, cupped around his phone, and stares up at the ceiling. Something feels juvenile, nostalgic even, about the way he’s lying. Like things are simpler than they are. Like he’s just relaxing on the couch texting a boy who – he can admit it – he thinks is amazing. A boy who he wants to know more.

 

Free from the weight of distraction, his muscles cry out for proper rest.

 

> 23:54  
>  I’ve got to go to sleep now, but I’ll talk to you tomorrow?

 

He leaves it open, deliberately. It seems gentler that way. And besides, Jack doesn’t want to make any promises that he shouldn’t.

 

> 23:54  
>  _Get your rest, Mr Captain! (Congrats btw – you looked like you were working hard. So happy that it paid off!)_

> 23:54  
>  _Chat tomorrow!_ ヽ( ᵕ ⌓ ᵕ๑ )ゞ

 

The combination of punctuation looks this time like a little yawning figure, and it’s somehow so startlingly like Bittle and so endearing that Jack can’t help swiping his thumb over it on the screen.

 

He lies awake in bed for another hour after they stop texting, counting his breaths with his hand pushed into his diaphragm. The thinks about Bittle’s mouth curving around unfamiliar words, about his unrestrained use of emoticons, about the sunny “hey!” he greets Jack with every Skype call.

 

When he finally does dream, it’s of Bittle skating around the edge of the practice rink. Jack watches him from the center, his skates stuck in the ice. Bittle beckons him over, but Jack’s skates don’t move.

 

He wakes up, and his sheets are damp and his skin is clammy.

 

* * *

 

There is a week early in December where Jack realizes he has spoken to Bittle every single day. Not texting, which now happens with a casual consistency that Jack knows shouldn’t make him feel special, but every random ping and excessive emoji stokes something smoldering in the depth of Jack’s chest.

 

This particular week, though, they have Skype with daily regularity, for an hour at least. There was some rationale for it originally, Bittle’s upcoming French midterm or something, but Jack can’t seem to stop himself from chirping, from probing Bittle with unsolicited questions that send his eyebrows rocketing up his forehead, from dropping comments and compliments into the conversation.

 

He muses on it with his therapist, their bi-monthly session falling on a Thursday morning of that week.

 

“I was thinking about it, that… I’m thinking less, maybe. Policing myself less when I talk to him.”

Dr. Casinader nods at him, taking a sip of her water. She taps something briefly on the iPad in her lap. He’d found it irritating, when he first started seeing her, that she didn’t take notes on paper. The appointment had been made last-minute, half a season into his rookie year, an emergency if ever there was one. Now, though, they’re almost three years down the track and Jack’s desire to stop seeing her is completely unrelated to her habits. He’s feeling stable, and controlled. He tells her as much.

 

“That’s good. Do you think it’s because of Bittle?”

Jack hadn’t given Bittle’s first name. He wonders briefly if she finds that weird, but brushes it aside. He’s done weirder things, and she hasn’t batted an eye.

“Am I placing too much importance on him if I say it is?”

She smiles, a flitting expression.

“Do _you_ think you are?”

Jack huffs a laugh, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He sinks further into the couch, the vinyl squeaking in protest against his general bulk.

“Shit, probably. I was just… I mean, I know I shouldn’t worry about it. We’ve spoken about this. But it feels… I don’t know. It’s different, I guess.”

“Where does Bittle fit, in your compartments?”

Jack frowns.

“You told me not to compartmentalize people.”

“And yet, you still do it anyway; I know you do it. Where did you put him?”

 

Jack leans forward to brace his forearms on his knees, holding one fist in his other hand. He directs his frown at a spot on the carpet, and chews on his lip as he thinks. Dr. Casinader waits.

“I don’t associate him with hockey, even if that’s how I met him, technically. And I don’t link him with my parents, obviously.”

“What _do_ you associate him with?”

Jack blinks at her. “Spinach puffs,” he says, unthinkingly.

Dr. Casinader has the good grace to smother her laughter. “I don’t condone your system, but I don’t think that’s a category.”

Jack shrugs. “He’s Bittle. I don’t think I… I mean, he’s Bittle.”

“He defies categorization?” Her arched eyebrow is candid, a little joking – her lack of affect is part of what has kept Jack seeing her all this time.

“I don’t think I want to categorize him,” Jack admits.

 

Dr. Casinader nods again, dropping her eyes to her iPad.

“I’m going to be upfront, Jack: it feels good to win this one.”

 

Jack snorts. “Yeah, well, don’t get used to it, eh? You know how competitive I am.”

She ignores him, beyond another quick smile, and continues on.

“I want to talk about the talking more.” She doesn’t look up as she says it, allowing Jack the unwatched moment she knows he’ll need to reflect. When she does meet his eyes, he nods.

“It’s like, whenever I talk to him, I just let myself say whatever’s in my head. It’s a wonder he keeps talking to me, to be honest. Probably confusing as fuck.”

“You’re not filtering yourself?”

“I didn’t say that.”

 

Jack looks over Dr. Casinader’s shoulder to the bookshelf along the wall, neat lines of glossy titles. He knows, among them, one bears Dr. Casinader’s name. He’s never bothered looking for it; her category, she’d probably be amused to discover, is within this room only. As far as Jack’s concerned, she doesn’t exist outside.

“I say what I want, but it’s not as though I can be completely… I can’t let myself be emotional.” He catches the disapproving purse of her lips, fleeting though it is. “It’s complicated,” he hedges.

“You’re allowed to have feelings,” she tells him. Her voice has taken on the cadence she adopts when they’re both aware he’s being deliberately obtuse. There’s something goading in it, from Jack’s perspective, almost a challenge. She is well acquainted with the knowledge that he is nothing if not competitive.

“I know; you’ve told me that before.” He folds his arms and slumps back into the couch again, legs falling further apart. “This isn’t the same thing.”

“Bittle wouldn’t keep engaging with you if he weren’t interested in what you had to say.”

“ _I know_ ,” he says again, trying to soften the edge making its way into his tone. “That’s not what’s happening here.”

 

Dr. Casinader’s confusion is evident, but maybe only because Jack has spent so much time with her that he’s learned her tells. She tucks her hair behind her ear, and fiddles briefly with her earring. Jack feels badly about it, a little.

“You’re also allowed to show Bittle that you enjoy his company. He won’t judge you for being happy or excited. You don’t have to suppress what you’re feeling.”

Jack sighs briefly, chewing on the moral implications of telling Dr. Casinader everything. He doesn’t need to impress her. More than worrying about her opinion of him being ruined, he’s concerned she’ll tell him to stop. That she’ll say he’s being self-destructive. That he needs to cultivate relationships that are able to be reciprocated.

 

Still, he needs to make her understand how off-base she is in her assessment of his reasoning. They both know that Jack’s conversational problems are usually to do with overthinking. As a teenager, he became too used to seeing peoples’ eyes glaze over whenever he spoke for too long. He was aware that he wasn’t super effusive, had learned early on that being too excitable or emotional caught people off guard. As a kid, he was already big; he didn’t need to be boisterous as well. Like any flaw, he worked on it. One of the first things he and Dr. Casinader decided on was that he had probably gone too far.

 

When he first moved to Providence, they worked on engaging with people in a way that felt natural, and not sabotaging his own relationships by shutting off. _Worrying about others’ perception of him creates unnecessary anxiety; Jack cannot control anybody but himself._ Jack knows, though, that being as open as he has been with Bittle is nothing like camaraderie with his teammates.

 

“It’s not because I don’t want to seem too over the top,” he tries to assure her. Her continued skepticism is clear. “It’s because he’s in a relationship, and I don’t want to overstep.” Jack feels his jaw setting as he says it, challenge rising up even before she has a chance to respond.

“That’s considerate of you.”

Jack squints.

“Huh?”

“Putting your own wants aside out of respect for his relationship. That’s considerate of you.”

Jack’s shaking his head, slowly and dazedly, before she’s even finished talking.

“I’m being selfish, aren’t I? Like, I shouldn’t even have feelings for him at all. I should be satisfied enough being his friend.”

“Are you _dis_ satisfied with the current relationship?”

“No, of course not.”

 

Although this answer doesn’t seem to surprise Dr. Casinader, who nods firmly and adds a note to her iPad, it does surprise Jack.

“I’m happy with whatever he wants from me,” Jack admits, as much to himself as to her. He can’t help the uptick of his voice at the end, the mild shock that’s still washing over him.

“There you go.”

The way she says it sounds final, like it was obvious all along, and Jack huffs a laugh.

“You know, I really don’t think therapists are supposed to be as smug as you are.”

“It’s hard not to be smug when I’m this right all the time.”

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

Jack lets it happen. There’s an irony around actively trying to be more _laissez-faire_ about his relationships, but allowing his interactions with Bittle to unfold naturally proves to be the best choice he’s made in recent times. He collects more of Bittle’s smiles, and witnesses his guard lowering as he lets Jack see him in house clothes, with un-styled hair, covered in flour as he bakes his way through their conversations. He used to be a figure skater, Jack learns, which only serves to fuel his Bittle-centric skating dreams. He imagines Bittle twirling and jumping, stick in hand, keeping the puck far from Jack and staying always just out of reach.

 

Jack learns that Bittle’s relationship with food is, in his own words, by far the most committed in his life.

“Any boyfriend I have will just have to deal with that,” he asserts with a seriousness that Jack recognizes as real, and charmingly dramatic. “He’ll have to get used to playing second-fiddle to my first true love.”

 

He doesn’t mention Poots as he says it, nor does Jack bring up the recipes he has had to change and the freedom with ingredients he has had to sacrifice.

 

Bittle plays pop music as he cooks, and he recognizes that Jack is joking when he feigns complete ignorance of every artist. He is generous with his laughter, and easily flattering with his compliments, and sharp and insightful when Jack talks about hockey.

 

Jack hunts down tape of his games, and sees soft hands and a keen perceptiveness for play, and speed. So much speed. Bittle does skate with grace, and handles the puck with confidence, and though he shows reluctance in engaging physically with the opposition, Jack determines that Samwell would not be where they are in the standing without him.

 

Bittle chirps Jack for rarely listening to music made after he was born, and begs him for a sufganiyot recipe after Jack sends him a photo of the Hanukkah spread his parents brought to his apartment (though Jack has to be the bearer of bad news – his dad had gotten them from a bakery), and texts him barely minutes after midnight on New Year’s Eve. Bittle is in Georgia with his family, and Poots is out with the team after a home win, and Jack is alone in his apartment.

 

* * *

 

It isn’t until he’s sitting in a dark L.A. bar in mid-January, at another post-game celebration that he and Marty and Thirdy are trying to keep as subdued as possible, that he realizes the danger he’s been playing with.

 

Poots drops into the vacant chair next to Jack, whiff of beer stale and saturated.

“You’ve earned a celebratory drink, _mon capitaine_.”

He sets a pint down in front of Jack, a little hard, a splash of the drink making its way to the table. He doesn’t seem to notice. Jack snags a napkin from the pile in the middle of the table, a leftover from their shared bar nachos, and puts it under the glass.

“That accent needs work, Poots.”

 

Poots laughs weakly, the kind of drunken giggle that comes out loose and lazy. He’s leaning heavily on the table and looking at Jack with unfocused eyes.

“It’s better’n Bitty’s, I bet. _Mon capitaine_ ,” he says again, this time drawling it out with a cartoonish Southern twang. Jack barely holds back his eye-roll.

“Bittle got a B on his last oral exam,” Jack finds himself saying, almost combative in his tone. Thankfully, Poots is several beers deep and has lost all ability to read mood.

“I’d give him a solid A for oral, actually.” Poots slurs it, accompanying eyebrow waggle coming slow and uneven. Jack stares at him.

“Poots. Don’t say shit like that.” He can’t stop it, and it’s not because his inhibitions are lowered. The feeling that flares up in his gut, he knows, is protective – protective, and inappropriate.

“Shh, _shhhh_ ,” Poots blurts, holding a finger to his own lips, eyes fluttering shut. “Sorry, I forgot: can’t talk about dicks with hockey bros. Sorry, Jack. Sorry. Shhh.”

 

It would be funny, maybe, if Poots weren’t playing so fast and loose with something Jack knows he wants to keep as secret. Despite the flaring irritation he feels every time Poots talks about Bitty, Jack still feels responsible for him. Poots is _his_ rookie – if Jack should be feeling protective over anyone, it’s him.

“Poots, kid, maybe we should head out?”

Poots snorts a laugh, but pushes himself to his feet and waits for Jack to rise as well. Jack looks to where he last saw Thirdy, laughing at some story Snowy was telling, and finds they’re both being watched. He jerks a thumb at Poots and tips his head towards the door. Thirdy nods, giving Jack a two-fingered salute.

 

Ushering Poots out to the street, he breathes deeply at the freshness of the late-night air. His phone tells him it’s after two. They have a two-day reprieve from games, having also won against the Ducks the previous night. Still, their flight back to Providence the next day will be easier for Poots to handle without a hangover.

“How about we walk back, eh? Fresh air’ll do you good.”

“We should climb the Hollywood sign,” Poots responds, waiting for Jack to choose the direction before trailing after him. His steps shuffle on the pavement, the street quiet despite the prime clubbing hour. It is a weekday, Jack supposes.

“That sounds like a misdemeanour waiting to happen. George would murder us both, and you’re too young to die, kid.”

Poots sighs in a put-upon way, jostling into Jack’s side on unsteady feet.

 

They walk unspeaking for a while, Poots’ steps gaining minute confidence as they continue.

“Fuck, I’m drunk.”

“Yeah,” Jack agrees.

“I didn’t mean to drink that much. I know it’s not a good idea during season, but… _fuck_ , I’m _drunk_.”

Jack can’t help his chuckle.

“It’s alright, man. Plenty of the guys go just as hard during season as off season.”

“You don’t.” Through Poots’ alcoholic petulance, it sounds resentful to Jack’s ears. He decides to ignore the tone, and respond to the sentiment only.

 

“I don’t drink heaps off-season, either. But, you’re right, on season, I’d rather not do anything that could end up slowing me down. It’s not like that for everyone.” The silence drops between them again, harder this time. Poots shoves his hands into his pockets. Jack coughs, uncomfortable, watching Poots’ profile carefully. “You don’t have to do what I do, Poots. You need to make choices that are right for you.” He means for it to sound casual and comforting, but it maybe comes out slightly harsher than intended. He can hear the authority of what Bittle has jokingly called his ‘Captain Voice’ in the words. He hopes that Poots is still too affected to register it.

 

“I was so excited when the Falcs offered me a contract. I couldn’t _wait_ to play with you.” Poots says it small, and he says it miserable. Hands still in his pockets, he walks with his gaze down on the pavement – Jack is sure, avoiding eye contact as much as watching his step. He isn’t sure what to say. “And now, you – you think I’m just some stupid fucking kid, not cut out for this shit. _Fuck_.”

 

It takes Jack a moment to realize that Poots is fighting down tears, only cottoning on when Poots sucks in a loud and congested breath through his nose.

 

“Hey,” Jack starts, already hating how firm his voice sounds. He tries again, deliberately gentler. “Hey, none of us think that. You’re doing well for a rook. You’re moving the puck when you’re on the ice, and we can all see you’re going to go far. No one thinks you don’t belong here.”

He watches as Poots nods, stiff and sad, and breathes again, just as wetly.

“It’s all gonna fall the fuck apart when people find out, though.”

“Find out what?”

“About – you know.”

 _Bitty_ , Jack’s brain supplies. He pushes down on the nub of discomfort that is the idea of Poots and Bittle being a public couple. It is, of course, none of his business really.

 

“I can’t be that guy, Jack. But I keep – I keep fucking up, I know it. I’m going to ruin it for myself.”

It’s maybe the most self-awareness Poots has shown about his own relationship. This moment of clarity shouldn’t bother Jack so much; he internally chastises himself for his own rampant selfishness. He clears his throat, unafraid of his authoritative tone this time.

 

“If that’s what you’re afraid of, maybe you should talk to Bittle about it. I’m sure he’ll –” Jack has to steady himself, to push through with what he knows is the reasonable advice. He can’t actively sabotage Poots. That would be a real case for moral questionability. “He’ll understand. He’s an understanding guy.”

 

The ‘ _too understanding, when it comes to you_ ,’ goes unsaid. Jack almost wants to say it out loud when Poots snorts, and it’s just the wrong side of derisive.

“This isn’t anything to do with him, man. I know he’s not going to say anything. He’s _promised_.” He spits the last word, vaguely snide. Jack grits his teeth. “I mean, last night I went to fucking West Hollywood after everyone was asleep. Told Snowy I was too wired up and needed to go jogging or something. And, like, could you fucking imagine if someone had seen me? If they’d gotten a photo of me? I mean, _fuck_.”

 

Something heavy in Jack’s throat drops down to his stomach. Poots wasn’t worried about his relationship – he was worried about being outed. That the two things existed in the same orbit seemed to evade him entirely.

 

“What did you do in West Hollywood?”

Jack hates his own monotone. He wants to allow himself to be angrier. He wants to tell Poots off. He wants to make him feel bad.

“I went to a bar, spoke to some guys. They didn’t know who I was, and they were interested, and – I dunno. It was cool, to get to do that. But what if someone had – shit, I don’t even want to think about it.”

Now Jack _really_ wants to make him feel bad.

“What about Bittle?”

“What about him? No harm, no foul, dude. It’s not like I hooked up or anything. You know how it is.”

 

It’s something Poots has said to him before, along with the comment about being _that guy_ , and Jack has to fight against everything boiling up inside him telling him to say that no, he _doesn’t_ know how it is, and after how far he’s come he would kill to be ‘ _that guy_.’ The guy with the boyfriend. The guy comfortably out, and playing in the NHL.

 

The guy with Bitty.

 

“You should talk to Bittle.”

Poots snorts again, a sound revealing that he’s already sobering up. It’s deliberately dismissive, instead of accidentally.

“And deal with the resulting bitch fit because he’ll overreact and take it personally? Yeah, no thanks.”

“If you apologize, he’ll probably understand.”

Jack knows this to be true, if only because Bitty will always put Poots’ needs before his own. If only because Bitty would blame himself for Poots flirting with other guys, and double down on the effort he’s putting into their relationship. Jack bites down on the inside of his cheek.

“Nah. Not worth it. What he doesn’t know can’t annoy me.” Poots says it jokingly, malaise apparently forgotten. He elbows Jack flippantly in the side, throwing a would-be-playful grin at him. Jack grimaces back, thanking every higher power he can think of that they’re just around the corner from the hotel.

 

Before he falls asleep, he sends Bittle a text. It says, _I sometimes wish I could travel without having to work. Considering summer in LA._

 

The reply comes through quickly, and makes Jack laugh genuinely for the first time that night.

 

> 03:14  
>  _Careful – I might stow away in your suitcase!_

Jack types out, _How about I get you a first-class ticket instead?_

 

He deletes it, and sends back a _good night_. His sleep comes in fits and starts, and he doesn’t dream at all.

 

* * *

 

In the early morning hours after an early February loss against the Red Wings – a home game that should’ve come comfortably, confidently, if Jack’s head had been in the right place – finds Jack sitting on one of the concrete pylons along the Riverwalk. Days-old snow is still melting around him, and he knows he should be feeling the cold a bit more keenly than he is. He pulls his toque further down around his ears, then pushes his hands deep into his pockets. His breath comes in misty puffs, and his nose is starting to feel stuffy from the chill. Still, he doesn’t particularly want to leave.

 

His phone rings.

 

“Hello?” Jack hears his own voice higher than usual, the kind of rasp that feels constricted in his throat. It’s a familiar feeling. There’s a pause on the other end of the line, before Bittle replies.

“Jack? Are you okay? You sound…” he trails off, voice sounding distorted and odd through the connection. “I’m sorry if I woke you,” he continues, and Jack is certain he’s about to hang up.

“No, Bittle, it’s – I was awake. I’m just outside; it’s colder than I was expecting.”

“Jack, my _god_ , what the hell are you doing outside this time of night? And after a game and all. It’s the middle of winter – you’ll get _frostbite_ , Lord –”

“Bittle. I’m fine.” He sucks in a breath, and lets it out quick and hot as he can, watching the fog catch in the light from the streetlamp behind him. “I just needed to think, somewhere quiet. It’s refreshing.”

“I don’t know how, but I sometimes forget you’re Canadian and just end up embarrassing myself. This is probably shorts-wearing-weather for you.”

Jack tries to chuckle indulgently, but it comes out strained, even to his own ears. He coughs to try and cover it.

 

“Jack,” Bittle starts, hesitation clear, and Jack almost wants to beg him to ask. Wants an excuse to talk about it. Wants Bittle to _know_. “Tell me if I’m overstepping, please. I don’t want you to think I’m invasive, or…” He sighs a little, and although Jack is suddenly desperate, he waits. “Are you okay?”

Jack’s sigh is one of relief.

“We lost,” he says, plain and simple as he can make it, “and I know there’s more I could’ve done. I’m not shouldering blame that doesn’t belong to me, I just know there’s… it’s something I should’ve sorted out before the game. I dropped the ball.”

“Oh, Jack, I’m sure that’s not true. I’m sure no-one’s blaming you.”

“It should’ve been straightforward, and I made some stupid mistakes because my head was somewhere else. I need to sort it through before the next game.”

The admissions come through flat, clinical, but practicality about his anxieties has always been effective. It helps, too, to say it out loud.

 

Jack wonders if he’s imagining Bittle’s breathlessness when he asks, “What’s making you lose focus?”

“Honestly? Probably our upcoming Aces game. And I _hate_ that I’m being like this, because I should be able to – I should be past this by now, but every single fucking time, the idea of playing against him just gets me all…” He trails off, unsure of how to explain what is happening in his chest – what has been happening for the past two weeks, at least, as the anticipation built.

“Sorry, Jack, but _who_ –?”

Jack blinks out across the river.

“Oh. Um. Kent Parson. The captain of the Aces. We played together in Juniors.” It’s the barest explanation of their relationship, but it’s the only one that matters to Jack’s current situation.

“And you – you don’t like seeing him?”

 

Bittle’s speaking cautiously, hesitation in every syllable, and it strikes Jack that he hasn’t broached any topic like this with Bittle before. He wonders if he should hold back more, but now that he’s started he can’t seem to stop.

“I hate the person he makes me in to.” Jack swallows, and is made keenly aware of the size of his tongue in his mouth. “We’ve left most of our differences behind, and I don’t… we each owe each other apologies, but I don’t hate him, not any more. But I still want to beat him. He makes me forget I’m playing for my team. He makes me…”

“Competitive?” Bittle’s tone is gentle, the word itself unobtrusive, thought more than suggestion or interruption. It makes it easy for Jack to continue, as honest as he’s ever been. Jack laughs, but it’s humourless.

“Let’s be real, Bittle. I’m always competitive. He makes me _petty_. I forget where the limit is, I think. I take it too far.”

“I remember the fight from last year.”

Jack groans, surprising himself with the joking edge to it. “Parse never gets into fights, but I knew his D-man would drop his gloves if I did it first. Like, that’s shitty hockey, isn’t it? Going in looking for fights? He just – he knows how to force me to play dirty, and I hate it.”

“From what I’ve seen, he ain’t got such clean hands himself. That game where he rushed Snowy in the net? Uh – I mean. Um.”

Jack’s answering chuckle is real as they come, still a bit cracked from the tension he’s carrying, but he also thinks he’s finally recognizing the cold. It’s comforting.

 

“You and Tater should start an anti-Parse club. He hates him too.”

“I don’t _hate_ him – I don’t know him from Adam, and my mama always taught me you shouldn’t harbour unkindly feelings about people who haven’t wronged you none. I just think he gets away with a hell of a lot of bullshit behaviour on the ice.”

When he mentions _harbouring unkindly feelings_ , Bittle isn’t talking about Jack. He definitely isn’t talking about Jack and Poots, and yet Jack can’t help the contrite heat that flushes into his face.

 

“Thank you,” he finds himself mumbling, internally cringing at the dripping sincerity. “Just… thanks. For talking to me. For letting me talk it out. I know it’s something I need to do, and sometimes I just – anyway. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Jack.” Bittle’s voice is soft again. “It’s the least I can do. And I am sorry, about the game.”

“Yeah, well. You win some, you lose some.” It’s a lame joke, but Jack’s vindicated when Bittle lets loose a tiny chuckle. When it ends in a deep-set sigh, though, Jack’s worry is piqued.

 

“I owe you a real apology, actually.”

“Huh?”

“I didn’t completely call to comfort you. I called to comfort _myself_ , if I’m bein’ truthful.”

“Oh.” Jack shouldn’t feel pleased about that. He should really only feel concerned that Bittle needs comforting at all. However, his emotions seem to only want to betray him of late. “Do you still –?”

“No, I don’t think so. Um.” There’s a soft, wet sound down the line, like Bittle’s tongue unsticking from the roof of his mouth. Jack waits. “This helped, actually. Focusing on someone else’s problems, outside of my own. I need to learn that I’m not the center of everything, I guess.”

 

The fiercest part of Jack disagrees.

The rational part says, “I told you, you can always talk to me about whatever.”

 

Bittle makes a short noise, a tiny clicking of his tongue, and continues.

“I know, but I was just – I was probably being dramatic. Feeling sorry for myself. But I called Fitz after the game, to check if he was okay, and he – I mean, I get it, he probably didn’t feel up to talking.”

 

Jack can imagine what Poots did. He himself has done it before. Used to do it after every loss – shut everyone out, and snap at anyone who tried to get in. He likes to think he’s made some emotional progress since then. Still, he shouldn’t feel any sense of superiority over Poots. _He’s still just a rookie_ , he tries to remind himself.

 

“It can be hard after a game, sure,” Jack begins, measuring and weighing each word. “But he should say that to you rather than making you feel – um. Upset.”

“I’m just gettin’ a little tired of being yelled at all the time,” Bitty admits, exhaustion in every syllable, mumbling showing his guilt over even uttering this small complaint.

“You need to tell him that, Bits.”

 

Jack hears a sharp intake of breath, and replays what he’d just said. It was innocuous, insignificant. He didn’t think it revealed anything about his true intentions. But then –

“So we’re finally past a last-name basis?”

“Oh.” Jack doesn’t really know what to say. As he is apparently wont to do, though, Bittle – _Bitty_ , he may as well give up the pretense – saves him the trouble.

“Calm down, Jack. I’m just chirpin’.” It’s playful, that much is obvious, but punctuated by a yawn.

 

Jack doesn’t bother trying to keep the affection out of his own voice when he says, “Bitty. You should go to sleep. It’s late.”

“Could say the same to you.”

“Right. I’ll head home now.” He pushes himself off the concrete pylon, feeling the ache in his ass and thighs from having sat on a hard surface for so long. He shakes out his legs. “Hey, Bits. Thanks, eh? Just. Thanks, again.”

“Any time, Mr. Zimmermann.”

 

Jack hangs up through a laugh, and even though he breathes fog all the way home, he focusses on the warmth sitting deep in his chest.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

“Bittle, look. I’m messing this up so badly.”

Jack fumbles the lattice currently suspended between his fingers, watching forlornly as it sags in the middle and looks dangerously close to straight up tearing.

“No, you’re not,” Bitty coos across the speakers of Jack’s laptop, “it’s fine! You just need to lay it down quick, before –”

The lattice does tear, each side flopping down over Jack’s hands like a funerary cloth.

 

He’s not being dramatic.

 

“Fuck.”

“Oh, Jack, it’s okay –”

Whatever platitude or comfort Bitty was about to offer is lost in a peal of giggles, ending in a tiny snort that has Jack looking away from his pastry-draped fingers up to the screen. Bittle has his own flour-covered hand held in front of his mouth, eyes bright even through the pixilation, cheeks pulled wide through his smile. Full of that smile, Jack waves his broken lattice in front of the camera, the torn ends flapping about, limp and noodley. He’s rewarded with another snort.

 

“ _Stop_ , you silly boy.” Jack’s never been called a ‘silly boy’ before. He thinks he wants to be called it again. “You need to roll that out again now, and be careful of not over-working it. It’s be all hard and too tough for eating if you do that.”

“It’s probably going to taste like cardboard anyway, so I wouldn’t worry about the texture.”

“Hush,” Bitty reprimands, voice affectedly stern as Jack directs his attention back to gathering his failed pie lid into a ball, “you’ve followed _my_ instructions, and at least if it ain’t the right amount of working, it’ll be the perfect amount of sweet.”

Jack bites back on the _just like you_ that wants to spill itself out of his mouth, instead nodding firmly and rolling his newly-formed pastry ball across the counter.

 

They opt for a regular whole-crust this time around, Bitty conceding that maybe a lattice was too much for a beginner to handle. Each of their pies deposited into their respective ovens, Jack crosses to his sink to wash the tacky remnants of damp flour from between his fingers.

“You know, my old therapist once suggested I take up baking. Achievable hobbies.”

“Oh?”

Jack can hear the mild hesitation in Bitty’s voice, and throws a glance back to the laptop. He’s being watched, Bitty now leaning heavily on his own kitchen counter and affording Jack the entirety of his attention.

“I went and coached mites instead. I don’t think he was too happy about my reparative hobby still being hockey-related.”

Bitty laughs again, nose scrunching slightly through his tittering, and Jack throws him a lazy smile. Hands clean and dry, he leans against the bench with his arms folded. The reminder of therapy is a flag of sorts – Jack has been meaning to cancel his February appointment with Dr. Casinader. With his schedule, and his general good mood, it doesn’t seem necessary. It isn’t something he has done before, but he isn’t second-guessing himself. The weightlessness in his chest is near-constant, nowadays.

 

“I’ll be honest, I’m havin’ a hard time imagining you dealing with tiny children falling on their skates and messing up plays.” He purses his lips. “Even if you managed not to react to that childish Aces behaviour the other night.”

The game against the Aces had passed incident-free, with no glove-dropping and relatively clean play from both sides. There had been a near-miss between Kent and Tater, but Thirdy had smoothed things over. The Falcs had lost by a single point, but Jack found he didn’t mind so much. It was just one of the eighty-two.

 

He shrugs, his mouth quirking a little into a dry smirk.

“Kids aren’t supposed to know what they’re doing; they haven’t been shown yet. If someone actually wants to learn and improve…” He trails off, feeling himself frowning a little, looking down at his flour-coated counter. “Also, the kids didn’t know who I was. They didn’t care about the draft, or the O.D., or… or, my anxiety.” He flicks his gaze back up to Bitty, aware that he hasn’t actually spoken about this before. He’s hinted around it, and is sure that Bitty knows, likely in the way that _everyone knows_ – but this is the first time Jack has felt ready to lay everything out there. To be wholly honest. The full story, not just the one that got spread through the media and the leagues. “The parents cared, and they made their assumptions, and we had a couple kids yanked from the team because of it. But for a lot of them, I guess the opportunity for their kid to learn from a hockey legacy overrode the worry about them spending time around a cokehead.”

 

Bitty _tsks_ harshly, scowl setting itself deep between his brows. Jack can tell he’s about to launch in, to curse up a storm, so he cuts across.

“It’s okay, Bits. I’m past it – it’s about managing expectations, eh? I can’t control the way they see me; I can only control myself and what I share with the people around me.”

“Managing expectations,” Bitty repeats lowly, frown melting to something contemplative.

“People are going to think certain things no matter what you do to disprove them.”

 

He knows he sound rote, as he does whenever he speaks about his therapeutic strategies, but hopes Bitty recognizes his belief in the principle regardless. If the way Bitty hums and chews on his lip is any indication, Jack’s uncertainty is entirely misplaced.

 

Jack searches for something to lighten the mood, something to ask Bitty that will bring the simplicity back to what’s between them, but Bitty gets there first.

“I wish you’d have been around when I was a kid, to tell me that. So much energy I could’ve saved!” There’s something sharp in the brightness of his tone, and Jack’s concern only doubles when Bitty turns from the camera to pick up a cloth and start wiping down his bench.

“I didn’t know it myself, back then, so I probably couldn’t have been much help.”

Bitty shrugs his shoulder, almost like he’s pushing something free of it, and shakes his head. He’s still not looking at Jack, drawing the cloth across the counter surface in methodical sweeps.

 

“I should get over it, really. I mean, like, kids get picked on. What happened – it’s hardly bad, by comparison. I haven’t told people about it, really.”

“What are you talking about?”

Jack wants to be close to him, can see the discomfort even through the lagging image. The best he can manage, though, is mirroring Bitty’s positioning from earlier, and leaning on the bench in front of his laptop.

“Nothing, really. Just. No matter what I tried to do in high school, I still got picked on, and there was one time – the football team locked me in a supply closet overnight. It was kept very hush-hush, not like everyone found out and made it embarrassing, but yeah. I wonder if I brought it on myself, with – with the baking, and the skating, and… the Beyoncé and stuff.”

 

“No.”

 

Jack says it so forcefully, he isn’t quite sure he decided to – it just comes out, loud and certain. Bitty’s frowning again, mouth opening to reply, so Jack just barrels on, taking the tack of saying whatever comes into his head.

“No one deserves to go through something like that. You were a teenager? It was probably terrifying, holy shit. You absolutely did not deserve that. Bits, I am… I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

 

“Oh. Um, okay. Thanks.”

Bitty nods, glancing up to the screen before averting his eyes again. His arms come up to wrap around his middle, disregarding the wet cloth he’s still holding. He bites down on his lip again, still nodding absently.

 

Jack watches as the pixelated version of Bitty gets redder, the hard press of his lips thinner. It’s not until he chokes out and clamps both hands over his face, dropping the dishcloth to the floor with a faintly wet sound, that Jack realizes – he was holding back tears.

 

“Woah, hey, bud. I’m – I didn’t mean – Please don’t cry. Please.”

Bitty shakes his head furiously, face still hid in his hands. He sucks in a thick, damp breath, a huge runny sniff that would be gross if it didn’t slice Jack’s heart clean in two.

“I really didn’t want to make you cry, Bits. I’m sorry; just ignore what I said. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“No, no – I’m sorry. I’m bein’…” Bitty keeps his hands over his face, shaking his head again and talking to Jack through the cage of his fingers. He hiccups a little, sniffs some more, and finally pulls them away, scrubbing fingers over eyes one last time. “I just never… I didn’t think of it like that. I’m sorry. That shouldn’t have been overwhelming. I don’t know why that made me… _Lord_ , how am I being?”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. It’s embarrassing as all hell. God, look at me. I’m probably a snotty mess.” He rubs his eyes again, before holding his hands out to check for moisture on his fingertips.

 

“Who’s embarrassed? I’m not. Surely we’re past the point of trying to impress each other, Bittle. Remember, I’ve heard you struggling through kindergarten French and you’ve seen me fuck up a simple pie crust.” He tries for joking, and it maybe works, if Bitty’s shaky smile is real as it seems. “I mean, the threshold for embarrassment is beyond how snotty you get when you cry. Which is, like, _really_ snotty, by the way.”

That’s what does it, pushing a trilling little giggle out of Bitty’s mouth, a sound that is frankly loveable, and sends the warmth in Jack’s ribcage flaring.

 

“I haven’t really talked about this with anyone,” Bitty confesses – and Jack knows it’s a confession, because he squints after he says it, and seems minutely surprised at himself.

Jack can’t help but ask.

“Not even Poots?”

Bitty shrugs.

“I mean, not in so many words. I mentioned it to Shitty once, but it was in passing and I think – I don’t know if he realized I was being serious. And, you know, Fitz is a _jock_. Just guys being dudes, right? I’m not sure… I don’t think he’d understand, really.”

Jack doesn’t let himself do more than hum, knowing that if he tries to make words happen, he’ll stray too closely to revealing his true feelings about Poots, and his and Bitty’s entire relationship.

“I don’t want him to think… I don’t know. I know I can nag, sometimes.”

 

Jack frowns. The feat of strength he performs into redirecting his mouth from saying _what the fuck is his problem_ in to saying, “So Shitty is your best friend?” is positively Herculean. He probably deserves some sort of award.

 

The question, though, gets Bitty smiling affectionately.

“Yeah. He took me under his wing, when I was a freshman. He’s the first person I came out to. And, you know, obviously I have Fitz now, and we were friends first, but – we weren’t really that close when he was at Samwell. It was only really towards the end of his senior year that we really… well, we didn’t get together properly until graduation, and I’d thought it was – let’s just say, I’d thought it was something else. People can surprise you, huh?”

 

Jack isn’t sure he wants more details about how Poots seduced Bitty. He decides to stick with Shitty; it seems safer.

“Shitty goes to Harvard, right?”

“Yup.” Bitty pops the _p_ in the word, and Jack is struck by the thought that it’s downright cute. He isn’t sure he’s thought _anything_ is cute before. It draws him up short momentarily. Thankfully, Bitty keeps talking.

 

“So darn proud of him, that he’s going after a way to do some good in the world. He’s so smart, Jack, and he works so hard. Might not seem like it because he can be so – _well_. You’ve met him. But, he’s legitimately one of the most dedicated people I know. Present company excepted, of course.”

He throws a wink at Jack that makes a brief _ha!_ force its way out of Jack’s mouth, overly-loud. He scrambles for a question, over-compensating on casualness.

 

“What does he think of you and Poots?”

“Oh, he doesn’t know.” Jack apparently isn’t the only one affecting nonchalance. “Fitz doesn’t think it’s a good idea for people to know, so. It doesn’t matter.”

“Am I the only person who knows?”

Something flits across Bitty’s brow, momentary discomfort, but he smooths it over just as quickly.

“And look at all you have to put up with! Lord, I wouldn’t wish all my whining on Shitty. The cruel hand the universe dealt _you_ by having you stumble upon my sad and sorry self is bad enough.”

 

Jack feels his brow draw down, the words surging up from his gut, pushing across his tongue and past his teeth.

“Bitty –”

 

Through his speakers, a timer dings. Bitty snaps to attention, beautiful mouth falling into a delighted grin.

“Order up!”

He chuckles to himself as he pulls on a pair of waiting mitts, ducking out of the frame to pull his pie from the oven. Jack mirrors his movements on his own end, barely registering what his concoction looks like as he sets it on a wire rack he drags in front of his laptop.

 

“Lemme see,” Bitty instructs, back in frame and holding his own perfectly golden creation between careful hands. Jack tips his camera toward the pie, and barely hears when Bitty pronounces it _wonderful_.

 

What he does hear, loud and clear, is his own voice in his head: _Poots doesn’t deserve you._

 

* * *

 

Jack has become a master of avoiding being alone with Poots. He doesn’t ignore him, or run away from him, or anything of the sort – he just orchestrates their encounters so that there is always a buffer party. Without that third person, that prompt that Jack is a carrier of a secret that impacts on the happiness on someone he cares very deeply about, he isn’t sure he’d be able to stop himself from giving Poots a real piece of his mind. With someone else there, thankfully, he’s reminded that Bitty and Poots’ relationship is technically not something he has a right to stick his nose into, and Poots is – first and foremost – a rookie who needs Jack’s guidance.

 

Guidance, such a pairing off to run a stick-handling drill at the coaches’ behest during practice.

 

Being during practice, it should be a safe space. Jack should be protected from having to pretend he has nothing but a friendly interest in Bitty and his life. He should, though, really have learned the lesson that when Poots wants to talk about something, he’ll talk about it regardless of setting.

 

“Do you know what Bitty did the other day?”

Jack grunts, says “watch your angle,” and tries to focus Poots back on his stick. It works – for a second.

“Some guy asked for his number, and he told him he had a boyfriend.”

Jack doesn’t say anything.

“Like, honestly, what the fuck? It’s like – sure, just tell random people our private business. Fucking hell.”

 

Jack sends the puck back with maybe a little more force than is necessary. Poots absorbs the speed well; he is getting better, at least.

“What should he have said?”

“I don’t know, just that he’s not interested.”

“He didn’t use your name,” Jack points out. He tries to sound unconcerned. He’s _not_ unconcerned.

“It’s just – it’s stressful, you know? Keeping things secret.”

 

The hard edge of Jack’s disapproval softens slightly. He’s not completely unsympathetic to Poots’ situation: being closeted is tense. He has felt that, for sure – feels it still, a bit. Jack has the A, is easily the Falcs’ starring scorer, has been instrumental in building the team to what it is today. He has standing. Clout. Poots, on the other hand, is a rookie. His circumstances are precarious at best; a single significant mistake could be enough to bump him down to the farm team, or drop him altogether. He is one of a number, prime currency for trading, and his next team wouldn’t be like the Falcs. His next team wouldn’t have a an understanding and protective A.G.M. His next team wouldn’t have its own bisexual captain.

 

Still, Jack doesn’t feel that’s a reason to make Bitty feel ashamed. He tries his previous strategy of pointed suggestion.

“You know, if you talked to Bittle, I’m sure he’d –”

“I’m thinking about breaking up with him.”

 

Jack pauses. He has to reflect for a moment, vaguely certain that this is a situation where he’s imagined what he wanted to hear – has misheard completely, having finally progressed into just fabricating his own reality because the actual one is proving to be so relentlessly irritating. He plays with the puck for a bit, dancing it on the ice in front of himself, before sending it back to Poots, deliberately making him reach for it.

 

“You sure about that?”

It’s a good question. Ambiguous. Innocuous. Poots doesn’t disappoint in his answer.

“Being with him, it’s just fucking – he like, wants something from me all the time, and no matter how many times I tell him I don’t have the time or like, the energy, he’s still always – there. I just dunno if it’s worth the effort.”

Jack knows it’s inappropriate to want to smile. Still, the urge is there.

“So, break up.”

 

Poots is silent for a bit, focusing back on their drill and making an effort to get more speed on his return. Jack appreciates it.

“Good.” He sounds effusively approving, he knows, overly glad of having an excuse to make things professional again.

“Yeah, nah. I’ll leave it. Breaking up would be a whole – it’d be a thing, and it’s like convenient having him around sometimes. You know, when the need strikes.” He raises his eyebrows significantly, and Jack feels his own jaw set. He really wishes Poots had left it alone.

“Right, well. Whatever you choose, Poots.”

 

Jack goes through the rest of practice on something like autopilot, fixating on the word _convenient_. He can’t lie, he’s had that attitude before. Arrangements with people, just because of convenience. The difference, though, had been that those people had been clear about the situation. And none of them had been in love with him. And none of them had thought the relationship was anything more than that – _convenience_.

 

They finish up by all taking shots against Snowy in the net, and his mind is so far away that he doesn’t make any. Barely anyone else does either, so it’s not really a problem.

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

Even though it’s one of those rare two-day game breaks, Jack still goes straight home after their win over the Avalanche. He knows Tater had rounded up a group for a few drinks, the destination probably one of the dive bars on the other side of town, but he’d begged off. With twenty-five minutes of ice time racked up, including a goal and three assists, he thinks he’s earned a giant sleep. Tater and the guys had reluctantly agreed, allowing him to go with minimal chirping.

 

Jack’s got a pair of sweats on, sitting on his couch and awkwardly trying to massage Deep Heat into his twinging shoulder – a little overextension, no big deal – when his phone rings. The time of night, it’s weird. Any concern he has, though, is washed over when he looks at the display, and sees the name _Eric Bittle_ , bracketed with bee emojis.

 

The “Hey, Bits” that he answers with sounds enamoured and syrupy, but he doesn’t really care about censoring himself right now. He’s too otherwise happy.

“Oh, you’re – are you at home?” Bitty sounds a touch distant, voice a bit lower than usual. There’s also something hoarse in his tone.

“Yeah, called it an early one. Everyone else went out, but I needed some recoup time.”

 

He hears Bitty let out a whoosh of a breath, something with a slightly harsh uptick that smacks of frustration.

“And here’s me, all gussied up with nowhere to go.”

Jack pauses in rubbing his shoulder, a frown edging onto his face.

“Bits, are you in Providence?”

“I was at the game.”

“You were –?” Jack clamps his phone between his ear and dry shoulder, standing and crossing to the kitchen to wash off the residue of ointment from his hand. It’s an easy task, and definitely less confusing than the scenario presenting itself to him on the phone. “But Poots went out with the boys.”

“So it would seem.” There’s an edge in Bitty’s voice. It makes Jack feel sharp, too.

“You’re alone.”

“And _bored_ too, for what it’s worth.”

 

A wild thought occurs to Jack.

 

“Hey, I’m alone and bored as well. And, not to brag, but my kitchen’s better than Poots’ is.” His traitorous brain adds that he’s got a lot of other things better than Poots, but thankfully recognizes that that’s not something he should be saying out loud.

“What do you know.” Bitty seems content to leave it at that. Jack exhales through his nose, something of a laugh.

“Bittle.”

“Jack?”

“I’m saying you can come over, if you want.”

“Well, if you insist.”

 

Jack revels in the roundness of his vowels, the way all the edge is gone from Bitty’s words and he seems – dare Jack think it – happy. He promises to text through his address, and Bitty promises his arrival in twenty minutes’ time.

 

After hanging up, Jack glances down at himself: shirtless, in low-slung sweats and bare feet. Although he knows, as a look, it sends the message he _wants_ to send, it’s definitely not appropriate. He pads to his bedroom and pulls on a shirt, an old Falconers one, from when he first signed. It’s a little snug, a lot faded, and Jack deliberately chooses not to think too hard about why that’s the one he picks.

 

He’s watching a recorded Sharks v. Flyers game from that day when there’s a tentative knock on his door.

 

When Jack opens it to find Bitty waiting in a blue-green button-down and cuffed jeans, hair swept up and pushed back from his forehead, lip caught between his teeth, it strikes him that they haven’t been in the same room for months.

 

“Hi,” seems an inadequate greeting, but Jack says it anyway. Then, he throws all caution to the wind, and pulls Bitty into his apartment and a full-body hug. Jack’s reminded inevitably of hugging Bitty in the locker room on their second meeting, and once again draws a broad palm down Bitty’s spine. This time, though, Bitty hugs back, clutching at Jack’s t-shirt and rising up on his toes slightly to hook his chin over Jack’s shoulder.

“Thank goodness you’ve showered,” he mutters, and Jack doesn’t even try to temper his chuckle.

 

Jack pulls back, allowing himself an indulgence by rubbing his hands across Bitty’s shoulders, and steps aside to let Bitty into the room properly.

“You want a drink?”

“Do you have alcohol?”

Jack snorts.

“I have some light beer, I think. Hang on.”

 

Returning from the kitchen with a cracked beer and a glass of water for himself, he finds Bitty has settled in front of the TV. The heat in Jack’s chest rumbles to life again.

 

Bitty accepts the beer in a slender grip, and tips it towards Jack in a toast before bringing it to his mouth and taking a lengthy gulp. Jack watches the movement of his throat.

“Thirsty?”

“Something like that.” Bitty’s tongue as it sweeps beer of his top lip is impossible not to track. “So, like, I’m going to say something, and you’re going to tell me what an idiot I am, and then we’re going to forget all about this.”

Jack squints at him, but nods despite himself. He takes a sip of his own drink, keeping eyes fixed on Bitty over the top of his glass.

 

“I know he’s with the team. And I know that bonding time is important, that it helps on the ice. We do it too, and I know what the benefits are. But there’s this little – this little, shitty, wrong part of me that’s like… he should be with me. That he shouldn’t have asked me down here, to the game and all, and then just _ditched_ me to hang out with his boys.”

 

He pauses, and Jack waits. He knows what he _wants_ to say, and it definitely isn’t what Bitty asked him to say. Bitty seems to take his silence differently, though.

 

“And believe me, I know what I’m being like. I’m acting like – like that pathetic partner who mopes around waiting for their boyfriend, and needs his attention twenty-four-seven, and who gets petty and rude when he wants to do things with his buddies, and – _and –_ ”

He breaks off on a sort of sob, huge eyes glossing over even as Jack watches.

 

“How did I become this person?”

 

There’s nothing Jack wants more than to reach out, to touch him. To brush his fingers through Bitty’s hair and look into his eyes and kiss the sadness from his lips. He doesn’t. What he does instead, is say, “You’re not ‘this person.’ You’re a good person. You’re a great person.”

Bitty sniffs, laughs, rubs the back of his hand roughly across his mouth.

“I’m being needy and jealous and horrible, and what’s worse is that I’m the one doing things that _he_ should be jealous about.”

Jack blinks at him. Something has flared up in his gut, something a bit twisted and hot. He feels it roil up and clamp its blistering coils around his chest.

“What do you mean?”

The gaze Bitty settles on him is earnest and plain, raw with hurt and shame. He’s honest, and beautiful.

“I mean _this_ , Jack. What I’ve been doing with you.”

“We’ve been talking. You’re allowed to have friends, Bittle.”

“I’m not sure that’s all you are to me.”

 

He says it like a confession, a near-whisper that leaves a heavy silence behind it.

“What do you mean?”

Saying the words this time sounds like a plea, Jack hearing the beg in his own tone. He has lately found that being direct is the best way to get the information he needs. And he needs this, he does, he needs Bitty to tell him that he only feels guilty because he’s been telling Jack things he hasn’t told Poots, or that he’s noticed Jack’s feelings and now feels like he’s been leading him on. Jack needs him to stamp all over the tiny licks of hope lapping their way up his throat.

 

“I mean I’m falling for you. Have fallen. I’ve fallen for you, completely.”

 

When Jack scores a goal, he feels it as a flush of ecstasy that turns the world to double speed and high-definition, that pushes smiles to his cheeks and makes his stomach flip in the elated way it might on a rollercoaster. This is what happens to him now. It’s all he can do not to pump his fist, except –

 

Except, Bitty is crying.

 

Jack throws caution to the wind and fits a dry palm around Bitty’s cheek, using his thumb to swipe the wetness from under his eye. He murmurs, “Shh, hey Bits, shh. It’s okay. You haven’t done anything wrong, bud.” He’s got the urge to press their foreheads together, to coach Bitty into matching their breathing, to calm him. But Bitty is not his boyfriend.

 

“I’ve been second-guessing _everything_ , trying to figure out where I went wrong and why he’s pulling away from me. But it was me all along. No wonder he doesn’t want to spend time with me anymore; I’ve been emotionally unavailable. And _of all people_ , it had to be you. It’s not like you…” Bitty trails off with a sigh, and Jack can’t help the frown that crosses his own face.

“Not like I what?”

“You’re just – you’re _nice_ , Jack, you’re a caring person, and I let myself think that that meant I could be something more to you, but you’re not – you don’t –”

He sighs again, frustrated, and uses a hesitant touch to pull Jack’s hand from his face and put it back in his own lap. Jack grips into the knees of his jeans.

“You _are_ something more to me.”

“Yeah, like a little brother or something, I _know_ Jack, I do know you care about me. But it’s not –”

“No, Bittle. Listen. You’re something much more. You’re everything I want. You don’t know what I – you don’t know how it just kills me every time I have to see you crying over him. Every time, I can’t stop myself from thinking that you wouldn’t be crying if you were with me. That I’d never do anything to make you cry.” Jack looks into Bitty’s eyes, watching the disbelief mist over into awe. They still glisten, wet with grief. Jack smiles wryly. “Seems like I already messed that up, eh?”

“Oh, _Jack_.”

“I’ve fallen for you. Completely.”

 

Even with tears drying on his cheeks and red eyes, Bitty smiles with the sun in his face.

 

It clouds over as quickly as it breaks.

“Fitz.”

Jack immediately jerks up, glancing over his own shoulder to the door, sure that Poots has just walked in and he’s been caught in the act. Sure that Poots will have confirmation of everything Jack is distantly afraid of: that he is the selfish, awful, boyfriend-stealing bad bro. As it is, there’s no one there. Jack looks back to Bitty’s stony expression.

 

“I can’t do this to him, Jack. I really can’t. He doesn’t deserve it. And I… I mean, we just. We’ve been. I do.”

The endings of these aborted sentences fill themselves in, but the one that Jack can’t stop hearing is _I do love him_.

“Do you?”

Bitty bites his lip, face once again nakedly honest. “I don’t know any more.”

 

Jack hums, and the sound is a little more brusque than he intends. He coughs to clear his throat.

“I’m not going to push this. You have to do what’s best for you. But, Bits…” Jack could do it. He could tell Bitty about all the things Poots has said to him, all the snide comments, all the almost-but-not-quite-cheating. He could tell him the truth: that Poots doesn’t love him. That he said as much himself, to Jack’s face, at practice the other day. Instead, he sighs.

 

“You need to talk to him. Not to tell him about this, but just how you’re feeling. Figure out if what you were thinking is… true.” It is, but Jack can’t be the one to tell him that. Jack cups Bitty’s cheek again, tracing his fingers softly into Bitty’s hair. Bitty’s eyes are wide and fierce, and Jack feels it low in his chest.

 

“I want to kiss you,” he murmurs.

Bitty closes his eyes slowly and lets out a breath, something painful flickering across his expression. “Please, don’t.”

“I won’t. I won’t, not until you’re ready. Not until you tell me to.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

Jack and Bitty agree, mutually, to give each other some distance. Jack is still has a sort of dazed, shell-shocked sensation about the whole thing, and the last thing he wants is to pressure Bitty into any feelings he may not actually have.

 

The fact is, Bitty was feeling lonely before Jack came along. Loneliness can make people do things they may not otherwise.

 

When the plane touches down in Providence after the game on Friday, he hasn’t spoken to Bitty for nearly seventy-two hours. There is a highly dramatic part of Jack that has felt every second scraping against the grain of his being, itching to make contact, to see his face. But. Distance.

 

It’s late, but that’s not the only thing that is stopping the team from talking. Their loss that night had been irritating, and Jack knows he’s not the only one looking forward to his own bed. The rain that greets them only serves to further soak already dampened spirits. As the team cross the tarmac in a loose cluster, Jack finds himself tracking the back of Poots’ head, the tense line of his shoulders as he checks his phone. Jack hates the feeling of uncertainty it gives him, the knowledge that there have probably been conversations in the past few days that he has not been privy to. Poots had seemed fine before the game, though, suggesting that either Bitty hasn’t talked to him, or (just as likely) Poots doesn’t care.

 

Jack nearly doesn’t stop himself from shoulder-checking Poots as he strides past him.

 

In his car, Jack grips the wheel to steady himself. He’s being irrational, he knows it. Poots technically hasn’t done anything wrong; he’s careless, and reacts badly when other people expect things from him, and knew Bitty before Jack did. None of these things actually make him a bad person, despite the fact they annoy Jack. Despite the fact they make Bitty upset.

 

Poots strolls into Jack’s field of vision, eyes trained on his phone as he crosses the parking lot. Jack watches him through the windshield as he gets into his own car and presses his phone to his ear. Even at a distance and in the insubstantial glow of Poots’ roof light, Jack can see his impatience.

 

As he observes, Poots throws jerky sentences down the phone line, jaw setting a hard angle and brow furrowing. He’s shaking his head, and spitting out words, and his mouth gets wider and wider as Jack is sure his volume gets higher and higher.

 

The car light fades out.

 

Jack stays watching Poots’ dark car, unable to discern his figure in the driver’s seat. It looks, for all appearances, empty. His own car is dark as well, the only sign of life in Jack’s current perception his own ragged breathing.

 

It seems like hours before Poots’ headlights brighten and he pulls out of the park. Realistically, it’s only a few minutes. Jack should go home, because his mind is racing ahead of itself and leaping to all sorts of conclusions. A logical part of him tells himself he should send Bitty a text, just to check in. A larger, hard-to-resist part tells him he should start the car and drive to Samwell.

 

His hand is on the ignition when his phone rings.

 

Jack scrambles to get it out of his pocket with such lack of coordination that he almost throws it across the car. He swipes it to answer and jams it to his ear with an overly-loud, “ _Bittle_.”

 

He gets a sniff in return. Jack takes a steadying breath and modulates his tone as he tries again.

“Hey, bud. What’s up?”

“Jack, I’m sorry to call you like this. I know we said we shouldn’t speak for a while, but I just.” Bitty takes his own steadying breath, sounding just as shaky as Jack feels. “I needed to talk to you.”

“You can always call me,” Jack murmurs back, grateful and thankful and just _full_ with the knowledge that he can do this for Bitty. That he can be this.

“Well, that’s a novel concept.” Bitty says it low, a side-comment, and he sounds simultaneously so bitter and _so_ disdainful. Knowing it’s directed at parties not present, Jack glares at Poots’ empty car space. “I had a talk with Fitz. Well, I had a _fight_ with Fitz. It probably wasn’t fair of me, really, to call him after y’all had such a hard game, but I just didn’t –”

“Bits. What happened?” Jack is tired of Bitty making excuses for Poots, hates that he obviously feels like he still has to. He thinks about the anger in Poots’ face as Jack had watched him in his car.

 

Bitty sighs.

 

“I left him a voice mail when I knew you guys were flying, and then he called me, I guess when you landed? Oh – oh my god, Jack, are you still at the airport? Shit, listen, I’ll just call you –”

“Don’t you dare. Bittle, keep talking.”

Bitty takes a small-but-audible breath, and huffs a laugh.

“Okay, mister. You be careful with using those Captain orders on me, though.” He titters a little, although it sounds mostly forced, and Jack offers a brief laugh of his own. Bitty coughs before continuing. “I called him just to say all those things I was telling you about. Feeling… disconnected, I suppose. Feeling like he wasn’t interested, or like I was annoying him all the time. Feeling alone. And he got so _defensive_ , started telling me to back off.”

Bitty doesn’t sound upset any more – he sounds angry, if anything. Jack can empathize.

 

“He said I was being needy and clingy by baking for him all the time and wanting to visit on weekends, and so _I_ said, ‘well you were the one who asked me to be your boyfriend in the first place!’”

Secure in the knowledge he can’t be seen, Jack pumps his fist. There is a rumble of pride deep in his chest.

 

“It’s like, the more defensive he got the more I realized what a fucking _idiot_ I’ve been, just accepting the fact that he’d cancel plans, or – or refuse to eat my food, or not want me anywhere near your team. _God!_ ”

A little despite himself, Jack is grinning, buoyed by Bitty’s moment of realization and the ferocity he’s directing at the way he’s been treated. It feels right. Just.

 

“And it just made me so mad, this sudden realization that he’s made me feel so stupid for so lon _g_. And, oh my goodness honey, I’m not proud of it, but I got really petty. I was all like, ‘It’s always me doing the work in this relationship!’ and ‘If you want to spend so much time with your team, maybe you should date them!’”

 

Jack is minutely stuck on being called ‘honey,’ and how with a single endearment, Bitty managed to sap all the moisture from his mouth. That’s probably why he says, without thinking, “He failed pretty spectacularly with only one boyfriend, I don’t think he’d do too well handling a whole team of ‘em.”

He’s rewarded with a brightly surprised laugh, which cuts off as quickly as it spilled out. There are a few seconds of silence over the phone before Jack tentatively asks, “Bitty?”

“I broke up with him.”

 

Jack bites down on his own lip, honestly unsure of what to give as a reply. He lets the quiet stretch for a bit before he says, measured and careful, “Okay.”

It seems to be the prompt Bitty needs.

“He didn’t even try to stop me. He was like, ‘So that’s how it is?’ and then he hung up. He didn’t let me say what all I had to say.” He sounds so disgruntled at being cut off before he could finish berating Poots that Jack can’t help but chuckle.

 

“I saw him talking to you,” Jack admits. “He looked angry. Looked mean, I thought. I was so close to driving out to Samwell to see if you were alright.”

“Oh, you _fool_.” To Jack’s ears, Bitty is fondly bewildered. He decides he likes being the source of that particular feeling. “Well, as you now know, I’m perfectly fine. Although, Jack. We probably need to talk.”

 

Jack places a grounding hand back on the steering wheel, telling himself that bad things do not always follow those words. He grapples for the sense of elation he’d felt moments ago, the hope that had beat in his pulse. He tries not to think the worst.

“I understand if you don’t want to get together, Bittle. If you’re thinking differently now that – well. You know.”

To Jack’s surprise, Bitty laughs.

“ _You_ ,” he says, affectionate and deep, and the tension in Jack’s throat lifts. “I just mean we need to figure out how we’re doing this without anyone finding out. I mean, if that’s what you want.”

Bitty’s uncertainty has returned, and Jack has such a visceral reaction to it that he can’t help the harshness of the denial that bursts out of him.

 

“Oh,” Bitty says back, quiet again.

“No, Bittle, I mean – _yes_ , I do want to do this, but I don’t want it as secret.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I would not be able to keep this quiet. To keep _you_ quiet, the way you make me feel.”

“Jack,” Bitty intones, a little condescension seeping into his manner, “you play in the NHL. There’s no way of knowing what this could do to you, to your livelihood, if people found out.”

“I’ve been in the League for three years, Bittle. I’ve had the A for two and a half. And I’ve been out to my team for two. They’ve got my back.”

 

Bitty’s shock is audible even in the silence before he speaks. When he does, it’s again slow and firm.

 

“Okay, sweetheart, that may be the case, but you’re not really _out_. Publically, I mean. And besides…” Bitty sighs, a tired noise that seems to come from deep within, “I’m not out either.”

Jack snorts.

“Bittle, what are you talking about? All your friends know.”

“Yeah, that’s at Samwell. I’m talking about in Georgia. My parents don’t know. And I don’t think they want to, either.”

Jack’s not sure how to comment on that. He settles for, “Ah. Right.” He scrubs a hand over his face, slightly sobered by the actual reality of their situation. They’re jumping all sorts of guns. He lets out a sigh that ends in a snigger.

“I guess we might also have to go on a date, eh?”

 

Bitty laughs in a breathless way, and it becomes Jack’s new favourite noise.

 

“Yes, I think that would be a good idea.”

 

* * *

 

 

Despite the early hour Jack wakes at, within minutes of his alarm going off, a text pings in from Bitty that reads ‘ _Good morning! Work hard today_ ,’ along with a line of blushy-face emojis. Jack immediately taps out a smiley face and sends it back, and follows it up with his own, ‘ _Have a great day, Bits_.’

 

He can feel the slight smile tugging at his lips all through his run, and seems unable to control his urge to hum as he gears up before skate.

 

“Who knew Zimmermann was a Ray Charles fan?” Thirdy punctuates the comment with a tap to Jack’s shoulder. It sufficiently jerks Jack out of his thoughts.

“Huh?”

“‘Georgia On My Mind,’ man. Classic tune.”

“Haha, yeah.” Jack tries to hide what is probably a revealing grin in tying his skates. He’s unsuccessful, if Tater’s roaring laugh is any indication.

“I know that look, Zimmboni. Is ‘getting some’ look.”

Jack rolls his eyes and holds up defensive hands.

“There is no ‘some,’ Tater. And anyway,” he stands and shoulders his stick, only turning back when he’s near the door, “Zimmermanns don’t kiss and tell.”

 

He exits to a bellowing chorus that would seem to indicate teenage boys over full-grown professional athletes. It just makes him smile bigger.

 

Jack dominates practice, thrashing all the other guys in shootouts and suicides. Every time he makes the net or beats someone out, they give him a knowing leer of a grin he can’t help but return.

“Shit, if you being this happy makes you play like _that_ in a game, remind me to send a thank-you card to this person. You’ve gone next level, kid.”

Jack accepts Marty’s back slap with a laugh, shaking his head.

“It’s just a good mood, Marty.”

 

“Good mood named _Georgia_.” Tater gives him a raised-eyebrows smirk, and Jack can half guess what’s coming – he’s already protesting before Tater says it. “I’m surprise in you. Boss is married woman, Zimmboni!”

“Not even a little bit funny, Tater.” Jack has to raise his voice to be audible over the guffaws of the rest of the team.

“Or maybe is George! George is old man name, no? Are you trophy boy, Zimmboni?”

“Hey, Tater, at least I know I got the looks for it. You, on the other hand…” Jack trails off with a significant look, and Tater’s booming laugh joins the cacophony in the room.

 

Jack’s sharing an eye-roll with Thirdy when he catches sight of Poots; he’s huddled in the corner, watching the exchange with astonished eyes, face stricken and ghostly white. His gaze meets Jack’s, and his mouth clamps shut. Jack feels the smile slip from his face, his laughter falling away. He turns back to his gear, arranging his pads in his cubby. _Shit._

 

* * *

 

 

After a day of giving him the cowardly run-around, Jack is finally cornered by Poots in the nook as he eats his PB&J.

 

He really should have picked somewhere more private.

 

Poots sits across from him with a grave expression, and the familiar bitterness of guilt rises to Jack’s mouth. He sets his sandwich down and folds his arms on the table. He doesn’t know where to begin. Thankfully, Poots beats him to it.

“Why didn’t you shut them down?”

Jack is caught slightly off-guard. All he can say is, “Huh?”

“When they were joking about you dating a guy. In the locker room, this morning,” he adds when Jack keeps frowning at him with vague confusion. “The whole George thing that Tater was saying? Why didn’t you shut him down?”

“What for?”

“Because someone might think you were gay.”

Jack stares at him.

“They’re not going to think I’m gay.” Poots opens his mouth to say something else, so Jack cuts across him. “Because they already know I’m bi.”

 

Poots’ face folds into the deepest frown Jack has ever seen. Jack knows the feeling; he currently has the sense of missing a few crucial pieces in a puzzle.

“You knew that too, though.”

 

Poots just shakes his head slowly, and the sinking feeling that appears in Jack’s stomach is more of a sudden drop and he’s twelve feet deep.

 

“You really didn’t know?” Poots shakes again. “It’s an open secret; I’m not trying to hide it. I kind of figured you’d have found out by now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Poots’ voice is smaller than Jack has ever heard it, and he’s unavoidably reminded that this kid is just that – a kid.

“I don’t know,” Jack says truthfully. “I guess at first, I didn’t want to scare you off or anything. And I didn’t know you all too well, either. And then after a while, it just seemed logical that you would’ve found out another way.”

“But – but you knew about _me_.” He sounds accusatory now, indignant. Jack raises an eyebrow at him.

“It’s not ammunition, pal. This isn’t ‘show me yours and I’ll show you mine.’ I’m actually out here; you’re not. Meeting Bitty was an accident.”

“I broke up with him.”

 

Jack peers at him, the correction on the tip of his tongue, but he changes tack at the last second.

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Bittle told me.”

 

He doesn’t quite trust himself to say anything else, so he picks up his sandwich and takes as big a bite as he can manage.

“Did he know about you?”

Jack shakes his head, then pauses. He swallows as quickly as he can, and concedes, “He does now.”

 

Poots doesn’t seem about to say anything else, so Jack takes another bite. As he begins to chew, Poots starts in again.

 

“So he told you we broke up?” Jack nods. “Then you know he broke up with me?” He nods again. “Fuc _k_. Did he tell you why?”

Jack stops chewing, unsure of what to do. He settles for a non-committal jerk of his shoulder. Poots sighs and scrubs a hand over his face.

 

“He told me some bullshit about not feeling appreciated or something, like this was my fault. He apparently couldn’t get it into his head that I’m in the fucking NHL and I can’t just drop everything when he wants me to and give him all my fucking time. And like, it’s not my fault he’s fucking needy.” Jack is aware his chewing has taken on a decided aggression. He takes another bite to stop himself from retorting. Poots keeps going, unnoticing. “He’s probably just found some other guy to fuck and needed an excuse to clear his conscience.”

 

Jack puts down his sandwich.

“Stop.”

Poots smirks a little, like he thinks Jack’s joking, but it fades as Jack maintains his glare.

“I know it’s standard practice to badmouth your ex, but you don’t have any fucking idea what you’re talking about. I mean, that much has been clear through this whole thing. The last thing Bittle needs is me defending him, but seeing as you apparently refuse to listen to what _he_ has to say…” Poots blinks at him, evidently mildly startled, and Jack takes it as a sign that he’s paying attention. “He went out of his way to fit around your schedule, and was more than happy to change his own plans to suit you. You bailed on him all the damn time, and while I appreciate your dedication to the team, it was pretty clear you didn’t give one thought about how that might affect him. He fucking cooked for you, man. He changed his recipes to suit your requirements. And, yeah, I get it. He maybe felt more strongly for you than you did for him. But you should’ve told him that, not let him think you loved him for so long.”

 

Poots looks like Jack has sucker-punched him. He’s gaping a little, brow still furrowed in indignation, face a picture of betrayal. When he speaks, he sounds defensive. It only makes Jack angrier.

“Sorry, Jack, man, but you don’t actually know –”

“Yeah, I _do_ actually know. He told me. He told me _all_ of it. And do you know why he had to tell _me_?” He doesn’t leave Poots time to answer. “Because you didn’t leave him anyone else. You didn’t even want him to tell his best fuckin’ friend. Shitty’s a law student, Poots. He was a gender studies major. Yeah, he’s mouthy, but you really think he was going to rat on you to anyone?”

Poots’ mouth snaps closed, and his cheeks colour. Jack hopes it’s shame.

 

He thinks he’s done his job.

 

He shoves the final bite of his sandwich into his mouth, and snatches his lunchbox off the table as he stands. The last thing he says before he leaves is, “Take some responsibility, buddy.”

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

Their game that night has Jack skating hard, checking hard, shooting hard. His aggression doesn’t necessarily make things go better for them, but it’s not a detriment either. It’s purely personal, in a way, like a catharsis. He’s not going to let it affect the dynamic of the team. By the end, he’s stacked up two assists, helping them to a three-point margin win. He’s satisfied, but goes through the motions of consoling the other team without cracking a smile. He bestows perfunctory hugs on his teammates, and accepts the congratulations and thanks for his play.

 

Marty cuffs him across the back of the neck and gives him a significant grimace, which Jack attempts to return.

« _It’s nothing,_ » he says firmly, and Marty seems to accept it. Or, at least, he accepts that whatever it is, Jack will sort it out. Jack’s never been one to intentionally let a teammate down.

 

He ignores Poots’ imploring gaze on him as he ghosts out of the locker room, phone already in his hands and thumbing out a text.

 

22:43  
Are you still awake?

 

He hovers in the hallway waiting for a response, and as soon as the ‘ _yes’_ comes through he shoots back ‘ _Stay up another hour?_ ’

 

> 22:46  
>  _Sure thing, you MVP <3 _(˶◡‿◡)

Jack breaks into a sprint.

 

* * *

 

 

He’s on the porch of Bitty’s house, rapping knuckles on the door, within forty-five minutes. He may have broken several speed limits. As he waits for someone to answer the door, he realizes there are several things he hasn’t considered: Bitty may be awake, but busy; one of his housemates may be the one to answer the door; and, weirdest of all, Jack is still wearing his game day suit. It seems tonally wrong.

 

He only has a slight chance to fidget uncomfortably on the doorstep, however, before the door is pulled open. It is, thankfully, Bitty – Bitty wearing a close-fitting Harvard sweatshirt and a pair of plaid pajama pants, hair wet from a shower, looking fresh and scrubbed and just so soft that Jack wants to bury his face in the junction of Bitty’s neck and shoulder and never emerge.

 

Bitty’s face arranges into a glowing smile as he takes in Jack’s presence.

“Jack, hi! You’re here.”

“I’m here,” Jack agrees. He takes a steeling breath. “Bits, I owe you an apology.”

Bitty’s face dims a little, confusion clear in the small line that appears between his brows.

“Poots was… he was saying some stuff, some really shitty stuff, and I overstepped my place and kind of. Told him off a bit. I know you don’t need me to defend you, I know this is your business, but I couldn’t just.” He grits out a sigh, and shoves his hands in his pockets. “He just really never listened to you, eh?”

 

Bitty is looking at him with wide eyes, arms hanging uselessly at his sides.

 

“And now I guess I need to apologize for this, too. Turning up at your house in the middle of the night, without even… calling first. I’ll just – I’ll go.” He’s about to return to his car, tail between his legs, when Bitty reaches out and wraps a hand around his elbow.

“Come in, you silly boy.”

 

Bitty lets go of his elbow once Jack’s over the threshold, then leans around him to close the door and motions to follow him. They end up in a kitchen, a little worse for wear but with clean and cheerful curtains. It’s warm, and the oven is humming. The air also smells sugary and tart, like berries of some kind. Bitty leans against the kitchen bench, watching Jack with an unreadable expression on his face. Jack joins him, taking up position a couple of feet along the bench. He turns his head and looks down at Bitty, and longs to bridge the gap between them.

 

“So,” he says.

“So,” Bitty repeats. He smiles. “You sure know how to make a boy feel special, Jack Zimmermann.”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“Oh, I think you know exactly what you’re doing.”

“I never know anything I’m doing ever, actually.”

It’s a joke, mostly. It gets the desired effect; Bitty rolls his eyes and ducks his head, huffing a laugh into his own chest. Jack reaches out and brushes his fingertips, just once, through the hair above Bitty’s ear. Bitty’s breath audibly catches, but he keeps looking down.

 

“Congratulations on the game,” Bitty murmurs. Jack hums a little, still just watching Bitty’s face. The fan of his eyelashes. The freckles on his nose. “Very… physical. Your assists were amazing, too.”

“I’ve never wanted a game over quicker, to be honest.”

“Oh?”

“After talking with Poots, I pretty much only wanted to do one thing.”

“Oh?” Bitty’s voice has gotten high, and his eyelids flicker a bit as his eyes dart over to Jack. Seemingly unconsciously, he turns his body towards Jack’s, though his face is angled down.

 

Jack doesn’t move from where he’s standing, just leans the two feet into Bitty’s space. Jack braces himself with a firm hand on the kitchen bench. He ducks down and angles his face up, putting him vaguely in Bitty’s line of sight; he is still staring at the floor. Jack notes Bitty freezing, primed with anticipation, eyelids flickering again as he scans over Jack’s movements.

 

Jack stops, mere centimetres between their mouths. His tongue darts out briefly, and he breathes out slightly, and then Bitty tilts his head up and their lips almost brush against each other. It’s simple, a hint of contact more than kiss, but it still makes Jack’s eyes slide shut and a gravelled hum sound from his throat. He doesn’t want to push it, is holding himself back with every ounce of strength he has and his hold on the kitchen counter.

“I want to kiss you,” he says to Bitty for the second time.

On this occasion, however, Bitty says, “So do it.”

 

He does.

 

In a series of simultaneous movements, Jack presses their mouths together, brings his hands to cup Bitty’s face, and pushes himself closer so that their bodies are flush. He feels Bitty angling his neck to adjust to Jack’s height, feels his fingers twisting into the lapels of Jack’s suit jacket. Jack moves his lips against Bitty’s, push and pull, keeping everything slow and lingering, only adding his tongue for sporadic, lush sweeps into Bitty’s mouth. He draws back for a moment, looking down at Bitty’s blissfully closed eyes and the wanton part of his lips, before pressing back in with more depth than before. He keeps it measured, tracing fingers along Bitty’s jaw, sliding his other hand into his hair, wanting to make Bitty’s mouth swollen and dark not through the force of his attentions, but through the longevity of them.

 

He wants to kiss Bitty for forever.

 

Bitty makes a noise into his mouth, a little falling sigh, and slides his hands from Jack’s lapels to loop around his neck. Jack grunts in return, moving one hand from cradling Bitty’s face to gripping his waist. He uses this hold to pull Bitty inconceivably closer, feeling the line of his entire body against his own. Bitty sways a little, the angle of their mouths tilting as he rises up on his toes, craning into Jack’s touch. It makes Jack fierce, and he feels his hands and mouth become insistent, which Bitty responds to in kind.

 

From somewhere in the room, there is a clearing of a throat.

 

Jack finds himself being pushed forcefully away as Bitty both shoves at his chest and stumbles backward. Jack sees him starting to flail, the suddenness of his movement knocking him off balance, and reaches out to steady him, catching hold of his biceps. In turn, Bitty latches onto Jack’s forearms, managing to halt himself mid-fall. The look of concentrated horror on his face, however, doesn’t seem to be just from his near tumble. Jack is reminded, uncomfortably, of the day they met. This memory is only exacerbated when Bitty hisses, “I’m so sorry, Jack.”

 

There is an impressed-sounding whistle, serving to remind Jack that they are no longer alone and that is the reason Bitty is freaking out. He takes a moment to look at Bitty, trying to inject comfort into his gaze, before stepping away and turning a glare on the intruder.

 

“Good catch, bro.”

 

The guy looks vaguely familiar, a tall blond jock-type, and Jack feels himself straightening up reflexively in some sort of weird power play. He mentally scolds himself, but try as he might, he can’t stop the disgruntled part of him that wishes they had been left alone, uninterrupted and unseparated. Seemingly oblivious to Jack’s glower, the guy is looking between them with a shit-eating grin and waggling eyebrows.

 

“Bitty, my friend, you do realize this is grounds to charge you the most exorbitant of fines? Getting’ busy in the kitchen. For shame.”

As Bitty sputters protests, the guy strides toward Jack with his hand outstretched and – interestingly – collides with the island bench in the middle of the room on his way over. He emits a loud and forceful curse, clamping his un-presented hand to his damaged hip. Still frowning, Jack shakes the hand slowly.

“Holster, m’dude.”

“Jack.”

Holster squints at him for a moment, then with a dramatic intake of breath and suddenly-wide eyes, starts pumping Jack’s hand in earnest.

“Jack Zimmermann! Holy fucking hell, bro!”

 

Jack spares a glance toward Bitty as he utters a low and mortified, “oh Lord.” His face is hidden in his palms, and through the slits of his fingers he’s watching their shaking hands with that persistent fear. Reluctantly, Jack looks back to Holster as he continues talking.

“Totally did not recognize you, dude. I cracked my glasses, and I cannot see shit right now. You were just, like, a totally ripped blob that Bits was sucking face with.”

Bitty makes an indignant noise, but something about what Holster just said seems to click into place in his own mind. He drops Jack’s hand abruptly, and leans back a little with an, “Oh, fuck” that rings with shock.

 

Bitty babbles something like, “You can’t see, Holster, that’s not what we were doing,” but Jack cuts over him.

“Yeah, timing wasn’t great, man.”

He claps Holster on the shoulder, somehow managing to sound a lot less nervous than he feels. No matter how many times Jack does this, has this conversation, reveals this part of himself, it still manages to send his heart high and his palms wet. Holster laughs in an uncertain way, eyes darting between Jack and Bitty, and brows raised in clear confusion. The knowledge that this is the first non-teammate, non-family, non-Bitty person who Jack has divulged his sexuality to seems, to Jack’s perception, to settle heavily over the entire room. Still, he holds Holster’s eyes as best he can.

 

After a few moments, Holster holds up apologetic hands, and shakes his head a little.

“My mistake, bro. Obviously mis-saw something going on there. Hey Bits – no crime, no fine.”

Bitty sighs audibly, relief seeping through the breath. Jack turns to look at him again, and watches as he crosses to the oven to crouch down and check on whatever he’s had inside since before Jack arrived. Without looking away, Jack says, “Hey Holster, can you give us a minute?”

 

Holster chatters some assent, and Jack only glances to him to confirm he’s leaving the room. Immediately, Jack moves to kneel next to Bitty, staring into the oven. He can see the crusty top of a cobbler, jewel-red juice of the berries underneath bubbling through at some places.

“Are you scared for you, or scared for me?” Jack pauses, and considers. “Or scared of the fine?”

As he glances to Bitty, he catches his lips twitching into a fragment of a smile, gone just as quickly.

 

Enough silence builds that Jack is considering a different approach, before Bitty swallows audibly.

“You,” he admits, hoarse and low. Jack nods, and uses the kitchen bench to pull himself to his feet. He holds out a hand to Bitty, which Bitty folds his own in to, and hauls him to standing in a way that forces a gush of breathless laughter out of Bitty’s mouth. Small victories.

“Listen,” Jack begins carefully, “what would be bad about telling him?”

 

Bitty looks at him incredulously.

“Then someone who is practically a stranger to you would know that you kiss boys. I really don’t think I need to spell it out for you, sweetheart.”

Jack hums dismissively.

“He’s not a stranger to you. Do you trust him?”

Bitty hesitates.

“Implicitly.” He bites his lip and wrinkles his nose. “He’s Holster. He’s a bit…”

“Loud?”

“Unplanned.”

“From what I just saw, he’s got more than a working understanding of plausible deniability.”

“He’s so darn blind. He didn’t see anything.”

Jack laughs softly, and reaches out to graze his thumb against Bitty’s jawline.

“I already told you. If you’re okay with it, I want to tell people. So if you’re only holding back because you’re trying to protect me, then I’m going to need you to let me do this.”

 

Bitty meets Jack’s gaze, fierce and blazing, his jaw set and bottom lip clamped in his teeth. There’s a distinct wetness in his eyes, but Jack has the tact not to mention it. Stiffly, but decisively, Bitty nods. Without breaking their eye contact, Jack calls out, “Holster? You can come back in.”

 

The speed with which Holster meets the request makes it clear he was loitering just outside the door. He’s got his arms folded across his chest, and shuffles a little as he walks. It seems contrite, and incongruous to his size and general aura. Jack goes to lean against the bench again, and Bitty joins him, close enough that their upper arms press against each other.

“Holster, you didn’t mis-see.”

Holster starts to nod, a relentless bobbing of his head, and mutters under his breath what sounds like an unending string of “cool”s.

“I was kissing Bittle. Or, uh, I suppose we were kissing each other.”

“You suppose,” Bitty murmurs lowly. Jack elbows him.

Holster’s eyes are wide, but he’s still nodding. The “cool”s have stopped, and he instead makes a high-pitched and affected hum.

“You don’t get to tell anyone without Bittle’s permission.”

 

Holster’s expression melts into something less surprised and more sincere, and he extracts his right hand from the fold of his arms and claps it over his heart.

“On my principle as Bitty’s honorary father, I will not breathe a fucking word.”

Bitty scoffs. “Excuse you, but I look after y’all more than any of you look after me. If anyone’s the parent in this Haus, it’s me.”

“You keep telling yourself that.” Bitty seems set to retort, but Holster continues on with persistent brashness. “You’ve made a huge mistake, though. Deny or die, Bitty my dude. Rookie error.”

“What are you talking about?” Bitty no longer sounds uncertain, just exasperated, and is even leaning more minutely into Jack’s side.  Jack abandons pretense and reaches his arm behind Bitty on the kitchen bench, effectively executing a slightly-less-lame yawn-and-stretch. He’s rewarded when Bitty shuffles more directly against him.

 

“You admitted it! You’re guilty. Fine.” Holster jabs an accusing finger at Bitty, and Jack is momentarily struck by how cartoonish he is, as a person. It would be a little overwhelming, if it weren’t so friendly.

“How much is the fine?” Jack asks idly, more to Bitty than to Holster, but Holster replies anyway.

“Dos dollarydoos, my man. One for P.D.A., one for the excessiveness of the P.D.A. Reign it in, boys. This is a P.G. establishment.”

Bitty laughs cynically as Jack extracts his wallet from his suit pocket and hands four singles to Holster.

“This is double,” Holster points out unnecessarily.

“So it is,” Jack confirms. To Bitty, he says, “I should go. Morning skate. Let me know if –” he cuts himself off, inclining his head minutely in Holster’s direction. Bitty nods, eyes once again big and shining with a deep-set determination.

“I’ll walk you out,” he says.

 

As they reach the front door, Jack stops Bitty with a hand on his shoulder. When Bitty turns to him, Jack steps into his space and uses light fingers under his chin to tilt his face up. Bitty’s eyes slide shut and his lips part slightly, and Jack moistens his own before meeting them with a deliberate and unhurried tenderness. He pushes deeper, briefly, before pulling away over drawn-out moments. Stepping back, he slides his touch down to Bitty’s hand, folding it into his own.

 

The gradual smile that develops on Bitty’s face makes something in Jack’s throat stick.

 

“Bro. That was a fucking move.”

 

Bitty’s head snaps over to Holster, embarrassment and annoyance beginning to colour his cheeks. Before he can surely slaughter Holster with his words, Jack interjects.

“That one was pre-paid.”

Holster lets out a surprised-yet-delighted bark of a laugh, and Jack squeezes Bitty’s hand, just once.

“I’ll text you,” he says.

“Okay.”

 

He’s barely halfway across the front yard when Holster badly whisper-yells after him. He halts, and turns. Holster is on the porch, shutting the door behind himself. He jogs down the steps to meet Jack where he stands.

 

“Listen, Jack. I, ah.” Holster shakes his head, a little dazedly, and Jack raises an eyebrow at him. “Are you…”

He trails off, rubs a hand across the back of his neck. His uncertainty, hesitation, seems uncharacteristic even to Jack, who only met him about fifteen minutes ago. Jack thinks he can guess what’s coming.

“Holster, my team knows about me. They don’t know about Bittle, but I want them to. And when he’s ready, you know. Everyone else, too.”

Holster lets out a gust of air and mutters something that sounds like “oh, thank god.” Louder, he says “Nice one, dude. And hey, dece game tonight. Totally juice.”

Jack returns the fist-bump he offers, and pairs it with a genuine smile.

 

Holster’s nearly at the door to the house again, and Jack’s nearly at his car, when he shouts out a second time.

“Hey, I guess this explains where Bitty’s been going on weekends!”

He laughs, boomingly enough to probably wake the neighbours, and disappears inside the house.

 

Jack freezes, and just like that, his bubble bursts and everything seeps back in.

 

Poots.

 


	10. Chapter 10

 

Jack makes it to the Massachusetts border before he can’t take it anymore.

 

He pulls over, harsh and hard, only managing to be grateful for the lack of other late-night drivers when he gets the ignition off and the car is dark. He can hear himself breathing. There’s tension in it, and even as he tries to deepen the breaths down his chest and into his diaphragm, there’s little relief. He jams two fingers against his pulse and closes his eyes.

 

He counts.

 

Jack didn’t eat after the game, and though he’s still wired in the way he always is post-match, it’s not real energy. He’d cruised on adrenaline running to Bittle, boosted himself while kissing him, and the inevitable crash is only really a matter of time. He’s put his body under unnecessary and unplanned stress.

 

A barely-there hiss of a voice curls from the far reaches of his brain, and says, _for what?_

 

Jack presses the heels of his hands against his eyes until he sees red sparking in the black. He bites into his bottom lip, scraping teeth over sensitive skin. It seems impossible, but his mouth is filled with the echo of Bitty’s skin. Of Bitty’s mouth, left blood-full and glistening by Jack’s own. Of Bitty’s tongue, soft across Jack’s lips. His breath leaves him in a gust, and the dry staleness of adrenaline-fuelled nausea rises in his throat.

 

Jack tips his head back against his headrest and visualizes his lungs filling like bellows with each breath, palm resting over his solar plexus and feeling the expansion of his chest.

_In, two, three, four. Hold. Out, six, seven, eight._

_In._

_Hold._

_Out._

His radio is still playing; he didn’t properly shut off the car. The song is old, one he remembers his dad playing when he was a kid, but doesn’t know the words to. He tries to make them out, to turn the sounds of the singer into discernible lyrics. He keeps hearing, “heart of gold” – mining, searching, crossing oceans. He pictures an ocean, mirrored with sun, gold-tipped waves. He breathes.

_In._

_Hold._

_Out._

 

It’s with an unfeeling hand that he reaches to root around in the glovebox, retrieving an ‘emergencies only’ protein bar. _Address the immediate trigger; assess the underlying issue later_. His fingers are clumsy on the wrapper, and his dry mouth turns the bite mealy, and he almost chokes when he finally swallows. He keeps a bottle of water in the centre drink holder: he takes a sip, counts to three, takes another sip. Bite number two. He chews for longer, breathing through his nose and taking another swig that turns the chewed mass in his mouth to mush, but it’s slightly easier going down.

 

By the time he finishes the protein bar and the bottle of water, Jack is no longer panting between each mouthful.

 

He sits in his car, still on the shoulder, just listening to the radio. This time of night, there is no DJ, just a recorded voice after every few songs, reminding him he’s _listening to the home of the classics, WJLZ 90.8, After Dark._ It’s a while before another set of headlights approaches and passes in his mirror. Jack waits until the taillights are pinpricks down the way, then turns the ignition and pulls onto the road again.

 

* * *

 

 

Jack is exhausted when he makes it home, but not sleep-tired. With practice in the morning – though it already is technically the morning – he should try and sink back into routine. Should try and work towards equilibrium, and the ease of monotony. Instead of doing what he should, and taking some valerian root and crawling into bed, he pours a large glass of water, and opens his laptop.

 

Opening Skype has a distant hope attached to it. He’ll check to see if what he’s looking for is there, and if not, he’ll go to bed. Within seconds of opening the app, though, a video request pings through.

 

On answering, he should say something like, _I was just thinking of you_ , or _I can’t believe you’re still up_ , or _You can’t sleep either, huh?_

 

All he manages, though, is a thin and reedy, “Bits.”

 

Bitty stares back at him, and seems to be composed in shades of grey. He is lit from one side by something halogen, his desk lamp maybe, and it is washing him out. He is, for the first time since Jack met him, dimensionless. It makes Jack feel pinched. Shrivelled, just like Bitty seems.

 

Bitty replies, “Jack,” and sounds hoarse. “You look…”

He doesn’t finish, but Jack can imagine: strung out. Shaken. Dimensionless.

 

On the screen, Bitty swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing conspicuously in his throat, and within the depths of Jack’s chest, the familiar desire to soothe Bitty with his hands rears.

“You’re still awake. I was going to wait until morning, but I – I was watching for you. And then you appeared.”

“I just got home.”

A flicker of a frown. Concern.

“You left hours ago.”

“Yeah, I – uh. Remember that night I was by the river? You called me. It was after a game. We had lost, and I was outside, and you – you were worried, because it was freezing and I was by the water?”

“Of course I remember that.” Bitty is whispering almost, but his voice is fierce. Jack clears his throat, and continues, bolstered.

“Well. I was driving home, from your house. And I had to pull over, because I couldn’t breathe.”

Bitty closes his eyes briefly, and shakes his head a little. When he opens them, he looks pained, but nods for Jack to go on.

 

“I didn’t stop to think, before I came to see you. I fought with… with Poots – Fitz. And I played a rough game, and I drove straight over. I didn’t – it was impulsive. This whole thing, you and me, I – it’s been impulsive.” Jack grips the side of the screen, the closest he can get to touching some part of Bitty, and looks him in the eyes. “I’m not good at talking. I do things. I just do things, and it – afterwards, it hurts.”

 

Under his gaze, Bitty is nodding, small and fluid, and raises a hand to his own cheek. Then, inexplicably, he smiles.

 

“I – oh, Jack, I’m so glad to hear you say that.”

Jack blinks at him. Bitty lifts his hand from his face, and reaches presumably to his own screen. The knowledge that he is reaching to Jack, is likely touching Jack’s face, is trying to connect with him – it pokes at the layer of worry over Jack’s brain. It lifts the corner, and starts incrementally to flake it away.

 

“I just about threw up after you left. Holster was all under my feet, makin’ suggestive comments about my weekend trips, and all my texting. He said something like, ‘no wonder you’ve been such a zombie.’ I’ve never been so happy to have something out of the oven, I tell you.” He snorts derisively, rolling his eyes with an animation that stirs Jack’s hope. The worry lifts, further. “I tried to sleep, and I couldn’t. I just kept turning it all over in my head, everything from back until June. Everything I haven’t told you – or anyone, actually – about me an’ Lukas.”

 

Jack could theoretically blame the late hour and his deep-set tiredness for the name drawing a blank. It takes embarrassing moments for him to realize that Bitty is referring to Poots. Fitz. Lukas Fitzgerald, who has a fraught history with the man of Jack’s dreams, which Jack is not privy to. By the time Bitty finishes thoughtfully chewing on his lips and speaks again, Jack can see the natural colour returning to his face. He is sure his own complexion is the same; there are gaping holes in the fog over his brain, and clarity is seeping through.

 

“I want to be with you. More than anything, I want – I’ve been… I feel it, here, constantly.” He lays his hand over his diaphragm, right where Jack holds himself when he needs to breathe. “But everything is so tangled, right now. You feel it too.”

He is certain. Jack is certain too. He nods, firm, and murmurs, “I feel it too,” before Bitty continues.

“I don’t pay much mind to what Grammy Bittle tells me, but she always said that to untangle yarn, you have to find the end first. She may be – excuse my French – a bitter old cow, but she’s got a point.”

 

Jack’s answering laugh comes from nothing, and makes Bitty’s expression flash with appreciation. It’s not much, a simple _ha ha_ that comes quiet, but it’s proof: Jack is gaining nourishment, gaining clearness. Gaining control.

 

“You think we need to take some time,” he says. It’s not a question. In his own ears, his voice has gained back some strength that wasn’t there when he said Bitty’s name at the start of the call.

“I think… I think I need to think. I think I’ve given my heart a little too much sway, lately. From what you said, sounds like we’re on the same wavelength.”

“ _Folie à deux_ ,” Jack comments through a smile. Bitty wrinkles his nose.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve bilingual chirping.”

Jack feels his smile widen, in spite of the stretched feeling of his cheeks.

“It’s like – we’re crazy together. Impulsive. Irrational. It’s weirdly comforting, to tell the truth.”

 

It could be a trick of the light, or Jack’s imagination, but he sees Bitty’s nose flush, the slightest change in shade. Bitty mumbles something that sounds like, “crazy now,” and gifts Jack with a small answering smile.

“So, we force ourselves to be grown-ups. Think things through. Sort out our… tangles.”

“Yes. Yeah, I – thank you. I didn’t realize… I wasn’t –” Jack huffs, a self-deprecating laugh. He swallows and tries again.

 

“I want to be with you,” he parrots Bitty’s earlier statement, making serious eye contact again, laying his fingertips on Bitty’s image on the screen. “Things are messy. And I freaked out. But that’s not going to change; I want you. Everything about you. So much.”

 

Bitty is nodding again, still minutely smiling, hand still pressed to his own screen. Jack keeps talking, to himself as well, turning words into mantras.

 

“I can wait, until things are clearer. We can wait.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jack catches a scant hour-long nap, and suffers for it on the way to practice. On pulling into the rink, he shoots off a text to Bitty – _‘I hope you got more sleep than I did’_ – and gets a dramatic crying-face emoji in return. It makes him chuckle under his breath as he leaves his car and pockets his phone.

 

He’s sloppy on the ice, dropping passes and skating sluggishly, but his disappointing performance is earned. He keeps an apologetic grimace on his face through it all, and calls out contrite _sorry_ after _sorry_ for every mistake. After, he makes a point of thanking Marty and Thirdy for pulling the weight he dumped on them.

“Rough sleep, you know?” he tells them, and pledges to make it up.

 

There’s an incongruent lightness in all of it – not a sense of uncaring, so much as optimism. It’s one night without sleep; he’ll nap later and feel better. It’s one practice that he’s flubbed; he’ll work harder next time. It’s one more day not being with Bitty; they’ll be together soon.

 

Despite feeling the lurch of overwork and under-rest in his limbs, he finds himself humming as he goes about his day. There are some menial tasks that need doing: he has to cut some sticks, wants to re-lace his skates, should really talk to Nathaniel about his meal plan.

 

The saw in the gear room is roaring when Jack makes his way over, and his would-be-genial greeting dies on his lips when he rounds the corner and sees it’s being operated by Poots. Fitz.

Lukas.

 

He doesn’t look up, fixated on his stick, and Jack doesn’t announce his presence. He just watches.

 

When he was a rook, A fresh on his chest, Marty had approached him in the gear room. Had demanded to know what was up – why was Jack so tense? Why wasn’t he letting himself enjoy this? Jack had made his confession, scared and shaking.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Jack had begged.

 

In the end, Jack had been the one to do the telling.

 

The saw stops, and Lukas bends low to inspect his stick – so low, his nose is almost touching it. Jack coughs, which makes him jerk up and whirl to face the doorway. His face pales, rapidly, when he sees Jack standing there.

 

Jack can’t make a smile happen, not quite. He swallows, and it goes down sticky. After a few moments, he takes a breath: _In. Hold. Out._

 

“Good practice, Fitzgerald. You’re pulling it out.”

 

It doesn’t remotely have the desired effect: Lukas’ jaw tenses, and he snatches his stick off the table. He stalks past Jack without looking, without a word at all, and their shoulders jar against each other as he passes.

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

 

When Jack first got the A, he had called his father on the phone. The lack of habit or normalcy in this action was made embarrassingly clear to Jack when Bob had answered on barely the third ring, and barked frantically down the line, “Jack? _Qu'est-ce qu'il y a_?” with a panic in his voice that echoed of hospital rooms.

 

Jack had found himself unable to speak beyond choking out, “dad, _m’aides_.” Bob had floundered for close to a minute as Jack gasped for air, tearless sobs pulling ragged and laboured through his constricted throat. He was trying to talk, to tell Bob that his chest was hurting, but the air he needed to make words was being snatched away.

 

“ _Inhale_. Jack, _inhale. Un, deux, trois. Arrête. Exhale, quatre, cinq, six._ ”

Jack sobbed for three counts, paused, and sobbed for three more. His listened to his father’s voice – the hoarseness there, the way he over-enunciated, probably out of his own anxieties.

 

When Jack had started breathing without wheezing, and Bob had stopped counting, Jack had said, “I got the A,” and Bob had sighed.

“You’ll – Jack, you’ll be incredible. It will be fine. You know they wouldn’t give it to you if you couldn’t do it.”

Then, Jack had said, “I came out to Sebastien St. Martin,” and Bob had sighed again.

“Good,” he said. “That’s good.”

“It’s not. Dad – _papa_ , you know it’s not.”

There were countless faceless threats to everything Jack has built, spectres that he couldn’t anticipate because he was lost in the dark. He told Bob as much, and earned a dry chuckle in response.

 

“Shit, when did you get melodramatic?”

Before Jack could defend himself, Bob powered through.

 

“They’re not hidden monsters; they’re out there wearing buckets, same as you. Some of them are going to knock you back, but you’ll get around others, and you can still score if you play it right. Not everyone will be happy about it, but you’ll always have people in your corner. It would have been harder, before today. But you’ve got the A now. You’ve got more control. It’ll be a long season, but you take it like any: one game at a time, one period at a time, shift by shift. You see the whole ice, and you make your plays.”

 

Jack had been unable to find an appropriate response for several moments, long enough to get his dad asking, “Jack?” in a cautious and sharp way.

 

Eventually, Jack had laughed.

“I can’t believe you’re trying to give me a life lesson with fucking hockey metaphors, and you’re calling _me_ melodramatic.”

 

A week later, Jack had joined the A.G.M. Georgia Martin on her morning run, and had told her everything.

 

* * *

 

 

Jack’s playoff beard grew in patchy his first year. It was the beard of a twenty-two-year-old, the kind seen on every rookie in the league the first year they clinch a spot. It’s the kind of beard he’s expecting to see on Lukas, in a few weeks’ time. It is what Jack is imagining when he makes an appointment with his barber for early April. That first year, he went to the barber with his dad: the ritual of one last haircut, and a straight-razor shave, ready and fresh for playoff growth.

 

At this point, Jack’s fourth playoff run, Jack’s beard comes in better. Not quickly, but more uniform. He goes to the barber alone, but he sends a photo to his dad afterwards. Ritual.

 

Jack can’t be a father to Lukas, and being his friend is beyond Jack’s kindness. He can, though, be his Captain. It’s simpler. More professional. A more distinct delineation.

 

“Fitzgerald, good bounce today, eh?”

Lukas, as has become his tack, gives Jack nothing in return but a firm nod. He’s gone completely nonverbal in Jack’s presence, complying to instructions with minimal effort, responding to critique with frowns and compliments with bare acknowledgement. Jack persists. It is his responsibility.

 

Jack talks to the coaches about running drills that target skills which he knows Lukas needs to improve on. They consistently put Lukas on his side, in his group, and occasionally on his line for drills, and Jack makes the most of it. His recognition of Lukas and his presence is constant: “Fitzgerald, right wing”; “Fitzgerald, hands”; “Fitzgerald, _skate_.”

 

Jack tells himself it’s making a difference, and when Thirdy asks, “how’s the kid going?” he tells Thirdy that he doesn’t want Lukas to miss out on playoff ice time.

“He was picked up for a reason, eh? I’ve watched his old tape; when the intensity’s there, he goes hard. We can use that, in the playoffs, but –”

“Yeah, yeah. Not gonna happen if he doesn’t show up now. Sure.” Thirdy thumbs over his goatee, and regards Jack with a speculative look. “He sort out that personal issue he had a while back? He still seems… you know –” he waves his hand in a nondescript way – “twitchy.”

“He hasn’t mentioned anything.”

Truth is, Jack doesn’t know. Mention of Lukas Fitzgerald hasn’t passed between he and Bitty in days – but then again, their conversations are mostly limited to what is happening in their schedules. Innocuous things. Unfeeling things.

“It’s probably sorted out, eh? Been a while.”

 

Thirdy’s look is still hard, shrewd. He hums, a considering sound, before saying, “We were a little worried about you, man.”

Jack balks.

“Me?”

“You were taking too much responsibility. You don’t want to think there’s a thing like too much support to give, but – it’s not your fault, Jack. He was using you as a crutch.” An uncomfortable grimace passes over his face. “Marty and me, we tried to talk to him when we saw him struggling, all like, ‘you know you can come to us too? We’ll listen,’ blah blah blah, and he wasn’t having any of it. Said he didn’t know what we were talking about, but then he’d run off and hunt you down somewhere.”

“Huh.”

There had been those months where Lukas had been seemingly unavoidable. Jack had felt, maybe, the feeling had been exacerbated by his irritation about Lukas and Bitty.

 

“I kind of just assumed he was going to you guys about other stuff.”

Thirdy snorts.

“Nah. He’s barely said ‘boo’ to either of us.”

“Huh,” Jack says again.

“Rooks – sometimes it works out for them, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s not the team’s fault. It won’t be your fault. The farm team might not be the worst thing to happen to him.”

 

The thought makes Jack feel cold, for some reason. His stomach lurches in a slightly sickly way.

“He’ll be fine. He’s working hard. And when it pays off –” _I’ll know I did everything to make sure it did_ – “I’ll know he got everything he needed.”

Thirdy nods, slow and thoughtful, pursing his lips for a moment.

“You shoulder a lot, kid. I just want to make sure you know it’s not all on you.”

Jack raises an eyebrow.

“So I’m ‘kid’ again when you’re looking out for me, eh?”

 

Through a laugh, Thirdy shakes his head and says, “Listen, you may have got the A your first season, and you may be leading us in points, and you may be Jack fucking Zimmermann –” he punches Jack’s shoulder – “but you’re always gonna be our rook. Kid.”

 

* * *

 

A few hours before the game that night, half the team are in the belly of the stadium kicking around a soccer ball: ritual bonding, ripe with opportunities to show off, or chirp shitty ball skills. It’s a fixture in Jack’s routine, and aside from his PB&J, the most relaxing part of game days. He’s laughing. Tater had jumped for a header, miscalculated the height of the ball, and had it smack him in the face. He’s theatrically holding his nose, saying, “I’m be heartthrob now; broken nose is good for ladies.”

 

Lukas is walking past, edging through laughing figures largely unacknowledged. Soccer is team bonding. It’s lighthearted, and fun. Jack thinks he should join.

 

“Hey, Fitz, come play –”

Maybe it’s the use of his college nickname. Maybe it’s because Jack has been paying so much attention to him of late. Maybe it’s whatever has been making Lukas pale and surly – more so than usual. Whatever the reason, he whirls around, and explodes.

 

“Fuck, Zimmermann! Get off my dick! I know you love it in the ass, but can you stop being such a fag?”

 

The final word – _that_ word – trails off to barely nothing, steam of rage already giving way to palpable regret even as it leaves Lukas’ mouth. He freezes, clenched fists and gaunt face, and the corridor is silent.

 

Jack is still smiling. It fades slowly, and he can’t look away from Lukas’ face.

 

Marty breaks the quiet.

“Fitzgerald, go to the nook. Wait there. Do not leave.”

His tone is flat, hardened. It gets Jack snapping to look at him; his eyes are burning beneath his low-pulled brow. Scanning the rest of the guys, they wear similar expressions. Tater is watching him, eyes wide and mouth drawn thin. Jack has to look away, to Thirdy – who is watching him as well. Lukas’ figure retreats down the hall, stiff and slow, and all eyes are turned to Jack.

 

“Jack.” Thirdy. “You good?” Jack nods. He doesn’t know what they’re expecting of him: anger? Tears? Violence? He doesn’t feel any of those things.

“That was fucked up,” Snowy tells him. Jack nods again. It was fucked up, but not for the reasons they think.

 

“I should go any talk to him,” Jack says, and it sounds far away. He needs to apologize, to explain why he handled things the way he did. To come clean, about everything. About Bitty.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Jack isn’t aware he has started moving to the nook until Marty’s hand stops him. “Third and I, we’ll go talk to him and decide if we need to tell Boss. If that’s okay with you?”

His expression is almost parental in its concern, and the question comes gently. Jack has the distant urge to laugh.

 

Marty – all the guys – have done an excellent job of absorbing and adhering to their sensitivity training. They’re great ambassadors, vocal supporters. The ideal allies. Any untoward comments, they nip in the bud before Jack has a chance to feel awkward. Of course, no one has called the team’s power forward and all-round golden boy a _fag_ in full view and earshot of most of the players.

 

The thing that Jack is finding funny is that all the training in the world couldn’t prepare them for the reality of this situation. Explaining to them why any of this happened, and why it means he’s more concerned about Lukas than himself, is a complete non-starter.

 

“I’m not mad. I don’t care,” he tries. At their skeptical looks, he adds, emphatic, “It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to do anything to him.”

The looks exchanged between his co-alternates don’t go unmissed.

“Jack, I know you feel responsible for the kid. And you want to protect your rook. But what he just said to you? Really fucking not okay.” Marty’s voice is slow now, almost condescending in its tone. Jack frowns at him, then sighs. He’s not going to win this.

 

“Okay. Fine. Do what you’re going to do. But don’t – don’t lay down any punishments without talking to me first. Can you do that? Let me talk to him before you do anything.”

Their confusion over his behaviour is mixed with something else. From the furtive glances he’s getting from most of the guys, and from the sympathetic grimaces on Marty and Thirdy’s faces, Jack figures it’s pity. The pats they leave on his back before trudging off to the nook confirm it.

 

The tense silence hangs in the corridor even after they leave, Snowy still rolling the soccer ball between his palms absently. Jack clears his throat.

“We’ve got a game to win, right?”

There’s a pause before a stuttered chorus of approval, but Jack still fixes them with his most intense look and nods purposefully. He hopes he appears to have direction when he strides off; truthfully, there isn’t a destination in his head.

 

He winds up outside the trainers’ room, where he sinks to the floor and rests his forearms on his knees. He can hear a kind of rushing in his head.

 

Lukas has a way out, that much is obvious. He could absolve himself of any wrongdoing by coming out – at least, in the eyes of the management. They’d keep him on a line. He’d get playoff ice time. His outburst could be explained away as stress and fear, and even if the guys didn’t understand, they sure as hell wouldn’t say anything to him about it.

 

Jack saw Lukas’ blanched face, though. He saw the hollows in his cheeks, and the darkness under his eyes. He saw the terror. Jack knows the terror.

 

He leans forward, and rests his forehead on his arms. There is a game to play. It needs his attention.

 


	12. Chapter 12

 

They win. Jack doesn’t score. He actually gets boxed for a stupid mistake, an incident of tripping that only happened because he was being careless.

 

Lukas isn’t on the bench, or in the locker room either before or after the game. Jack becomes a collector of wary and stonily-sympathetic looks; good news travels fast, and hockey teams are as thirsted for gossip as sewing circles.

 

For the guys who were still harbouring uncomfortable thoughts about Jack’s inclinations, this whole thing was serving as a staunch warning. They are the ones who are obviously avoiding his gaze and vicinity, operating with jerky, tension-filled movements.

 

For those who have always been unthinkingly loyal, it was giving rise to an impotent protectiveness, shown in patted backs and growled platitudes. Jack is filled, again, with the inappropriate urge to laugh.

 

What he can’t shake, even as he stands under the harsh spray of locker room showers and sloughs the sweat and salt from his body, is the tightening of his stomach. The guilt that has settled itself there is radiating out, turning his bones stiff and uncomfortable. He rolls his shoulders, but still feels a crick in his neck.

 

He’s not properly dry as he re-dresses, and doesn’t even have his tie knotted when Marty and Thirdy loom over him in his stall.

“You up for talking to Boss?”

“I… kind of just want to go home. Think. Sleep.”

He needs to figure out what to tell Bitty. If he needs to tell Bitty at all. Out loud, he sighs, but it’s unrelated to Marty and Thirdy’s request. They don’t understand that, though.

“It’s fine. We’ll get her to call you, or – uh. Send you a message or something. Figure out how you want to proceed.”

There’s an oddly formal tone in Thirdy’s voice that Jack isn’t used to. He’s unable to stop himself from quirking an eyebrow in Thirdy’s direction, and hopes it comes across as less bewildered and more considering.

“Thanks,” he says, and tries to make it actually grateful. He still hears the sarcasm.

 

He needs to be alone. He’s lashing out.

 

“I’m going to go.” Jack shoulders his bag without looking at them, busying his hands and eyes in pulling his loose tie from his neck and shoving it into a side-pocket. “I’ll talk to you both later, eh?”

He’s barely made it two steps to the door before Marty claps a hand on his shoulder, again.

 

“Jack.”

He turns, and his eyes feel tired.

« _Don’t just sit there in your guilt. You didn’t do this. He did this._ »

Jack can’t tell him he’s wrong, so he just pulls a face that could pass for an appreciative smile, and goes on his way. The hallways are empty.

 

* * *

 

 

Jack showers again in his apartment. He hangs his head between his shoulders, and lets the water pound hot and sharp onto his back. He is distantly thankful for what he pays in body corporate fees, and the maintenance of the building’s water facilities. If not, the water would be running cold, the amount of time he stands there for. He plants his hands on the cool tiles of the wall, and waits until he doesn’t feel any of it – not the smooth ceramic under his fingers, or the ticklish rivulets of water wending down his face, or the boiling heat of the spray. He waits, and then shuts off the tap.

 

In the mirror, his skin is inflamed, puffy. The flesh of his hands is wrinkled and clammy. At least his neck isn’t twinging any more.

 

He towels down roughly and doesn’t put anything on, just clambers into bed as he is. The sheet settles over him, but doesn’t feel like it’s there.

 

Jack rolls heavily onto his side, and pulls his phone from the nightstand. Thumbs hovering over the keyboard, he considers his options. He types, and deletes, and re-drafts, and even when he presses ‘send’ he isn’t sure the message says everything he wants.

 

> 00:14  
>  I know we’re taking time, and if you’re not ready it’s fine. But can we meet somewhere in the next few days?

 

He isn’t expecting a reply until morning – what reason would Bitty have for being awake? – but his phone still vibrates in response, barely a minute later.

 

> 00:15  
>  _Of course. I would love that._

 

And then, before Jack even has a chance to start making his answer –

 

> 00:15  
>  _I miss you._

It brings a clogged feeling to Jack’s throat, and a sticky smile to his mouth. The guilt in his gut, though, settles heavier and anchors itself.

 

> 00:15  
>  I miss you too.

 

* * *

 

 

Bitty takes the train down from Samwell the next day, after some negotiation and near-argument (“Jack, my schedule is more open – I don’t even have class, it’s fine”), and Jack collects him from the station after practice. Jack spots him from across the parking lot, and raises a signalling hand. It seems to take long minutes for Bitty to make his way over, Jack’s calves tensing the entire time with the urge to move; it would be easy to meet him halfway. It would be easy to run to him, and pull him into a hug. As it is, he allows Bitty his ambling.

 

Standing in front of Jack finally, Bitty blinks up at him with raised eyebrows and an otherwise unreadable expression.

“Jack! Hi.”

“Hi.”

Bitty wraps his left hand around his right elbow, sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, and Jack’s self-control nearly shatters right there. He clears his throat.

“Uh – can I…? Can I hug you?”

The mask over Bitty’s emotions splits, and his mouth curves into a pleased smile.

“Yes. Definitely. Come here, you –”

He drops his hand from his arm, and reaches out to Jack, stepping forward to push his face into Jack’s shoulder and encircling his ribs. Jack, for his part, wraps Bitty up tight as he dares, cradles his head in one hand, and inhales.

 

“Hi,” he says again, and Bitty breathes out in a satisfied hum.

“Hi. You smell good.”

“I showered after practice and everything.”

“Oh my, what admirable hygiene.”

 

Bitty in Jack’s passenger seat brings back memories of that one night driving from Lukas’ apartment. This time, instead of street lights, Bitty’s profile is illuminated by the rich orange of the sunset, and Jack makes no attempt to hide the glances he steals at traffic stops. On this journey, though, he catches Bitty looking back more than once, and allows himself to indulge in it.

 

* * *

 

 

“So I – uh. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Bitty sits on Jack’s couch, shoes off and cup of coffee in his hand, and to Jack it feels like repetition even though they have never done this before. Their countless Skype conversations have shown him Bitty in sweats, Bitty just woken up, Bitty running on scant hours of sleep through midterms. It was a gradient of comfort, so gradual that Jack becoming privy to the Bitty behind the coif and button-downs – it felt like skating across fresh-pressed ice, and then looking back at the loops and curves left behind. Delicate, confident patterns, intersecting and painting out a story, if anyone cared to look. Those cuts in the ice were the beautiful product of effort, attention, and skill.

 

Now, on Jack’s couch in his sock feet, Bitty is just as honest, and just as open. He leans toward Jack, devoting full consideration, and says, “Anything.”

 

Jack swallows.

“There was an… incident. Yesterday. Fitzgerald – Lukas, he… uh.” Jack hesitates in the face of Bitty’s forming frown, then ploughs on with more determination, despite his disjointed thoughts. “He said… something. To me. Called me something that was, uh – not great, and a bunch of the guys heard, and he got a talking to. I’m not sure how it turned out; I’ve been avoiding it all day, told them I needed time to think. George is annoyed with me, because they want to take action about it and I keep deflecting her calls, but – um. I’m trying to figure out how to get him out of trouble without, y’know. Getting him _out_.”

 

Brows low over his eyes, the rest of Bitty’s face has taken on a steely quality.

“What did he say to you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jack tries, shaking his head. Bitty’s gaze is unblinking. “He… It was. Homophobic in nature,” he finishes delicately. Bitty scoffs. Then, he has a sharp intake of breath, and his scowl falls into wide-eyed trepidation.

“Does he know? About us?”

Instinctively, Jack reaches out a comforting hand to place on Bitty’s knee.

“No. No, Bits. Not about… He knows we talk.” Bitty’s hand lays itself over Jack’s, thumb immediately starting to rub gentle circles to the skin there. “It was my fault. He’s freaking out, and I’ve been – not exactly hard on him, but I’ve been… I maybe haven’t made it easy for him. I’ve been pushing him, a bit.”

Bitty snorts and rolls his eyes, dissatisfaction obviously back.

“You act as his Captain, and he hurls abuse at you? Hypocritical abuse, no less. Sounds like a real asset to the team.”

 

Jack’s neck twinges again with discomfort. He flips his hand on Bitty’s knee to lace their fingers together, and tries to measure his tone.

“He’s dealing with a lot of pressure, and I haven’t really helped that. Have you talked to him?”

Bitty’s jaw sets. He pulls his hand away. His brow curls once more into something near a glower, and he drops his eyes away from Jack, to his own lap, where his hands are knotting in themselves incessantly.

“Why would you ask me that?”

“I figured – you know, you were friends. He’s having a hard time. It might be good for him to –”

“Have you talked to Kent Parson?”

 

Bitty’s voice is sharp, a barb, spat at Jack with seemingly little compunction about it. Jack frowns.

“That’s different. You don’t know what happened there, so –”

“Right. Exactly. And you don’t know what happened with Lukas, so you don’t get to sit there and tell me I should feel bad about him lying in a grave that he dug himself.”

He looks up, and his eyes are blazing, hinting bloodshot. His face is red too, splotched with anger.

 

“I grew up a gay kid in small-town Georgia, and I didn’t even admit it to myself until I knew I had a way out. I know what loneliness feels like. I never thought I’d feel that lonely while I was supposed to be in a relationship with someone. He made me lonely, Jack. He made me feel stupid, and needy, and pathetic. He hurt me, deeply –” he fists his hand in his shirt, over his heart – “and he ruined my first real relationship. And the worst part of it is –” furious tears glaze over his eyes, but don’t fall, as he still fixes Jack with that fiery look – “I thought I was in love with him. I was so sure of it, but it turns out that wasn’t what I was feeling at all. Not even close. I was just _grateful_ –” he spits the word through a laugh, volume rising, voice dripping bitterness – “that someone was paying attention to me, and I wanted more than anything for him to keep paying attention to me, and – _Jesus Christ_! Fuck. You come in at the tail end of this shitshow, and think that you understand what happened between us? Jack?”

 

He’s close to sobbing by the end, words coming ragged and raw, pleading and accusing in the same breath, but still the tears don’t fall. He seems beyond the point of mere angry crying. Bitty is fuming, and Jack’s chest is clamped under an immovable weight.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Bitty – Bits. I’m… Shit. I am so sorry.” He makes a grab for Bitty’s hand again, and Bitty lets out a wounded noise, but does allow it. He even grips back, wrapping slender fingers over the bones of Jack’s hand. His face crumples.

“I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have – I’m sorry.”

“Did you think,” Bitty says, tone exhausted, words trembling, “that I broke up with him only for you?”

 

Jack freezes. He squeezes Bitty’s hand, but can’t form words. Bitty, fairly, takes his silence for confirmation. He shakes his head, a little slow, a little sad.

 

“Things were wrong a hell of a long time before you came along, Jack Zimmermann. Lord alive, they were probably fucked up from the start. Gratitude, and…” he presses his lips together momentarily, before something like resignation washes over his face, and he continues decisively, “ _indebtedness_ , and convenience – none of it is good basis for a relationship, it turns out.”

 

He sounds so burnt-out, beat-up, the only thing Jack can think to say is his name: “Bitty,” quietly, seriously.

 

Jack holds Bitty’s hand, rubs at the tender skin of it, the hockey callouses on the underside and the thin softness of his wrist. He holds Bitty’s hand, and tries not to hear the echoes of Bitty telling him, “you’re nice, Jack. You’re a caring person.”

 


	13. Chapter 13

 

Bitty is easily coaxed into sleeping in Jack’s guest room, probably as even through his insistence that he would take an Uber back to Samwell, he was blinking longer and longer with exhaustion.

 

They had sat on the couch for hours, not talking much, holding hands. When Bitty started nodding off where he sat, Jack insisted he stay, and rest. He made use of Jack’s bathroom, took the old sweatshirt and shorts that Jack offered with an appreciative smile, and closed the door with a long look and a “Good night, Jack” that held a lot more gravity than it should have.

 

For his part, Jack had completed his night time routine on autopilot, stripped down to his boxers, and has been lying staring out his window ever since. The night outside is a leathery black, punctuated only by the winking lights from other buildings. It seems never likely to change, forever dark, and Jack’s thoughts chase themselves around his head.

 

A soft tapping noise infiltrates from outside the room, distant and fallible. It could be mice. It could be a night bird, on the balcony. Jack doesn’t move.

 

That it’s not being caused by an animal becomes evident when it happens again, a short rhythm, and is then followed by the slow opening of Jack’s bedroom door and a dim shaft of light falling across the bed. He turns to face it, and finds Bitty silhouetted in the leaking brightness. He is still and silent, and though Jack waits for him to ask some question or announce his presence in some way, it never happens. Instead, he steps into the room on noiseless feet, shuts the door behind him, and crosses to the bed. There is no hesitation as he lifts a corner of the covers, slides under them, and settles on the right-hand pillow, facing Jack.

 

“Bits,” Jack says, and with darkness-adjusted sight, sees the shape of him recoil slightly with shock.

“You’re awake,” he whispers, a little frantic, a lot embarrassed.

“I never got to sleep.”

“Right. Sorry. I should – I’ll let you rest. I don’t know what I… I’ll go back to the other room.” He makes to roll out of bed, so Jack untangles on hand from the sheets and snags onto the cuff of the sweatshirt he’s wearing – Jack’s own sweatshirt, an old Falconers one, thin with age and washing.

“Stay. I want you to stay.”

Bitty pauses again, half in the bed and half out, before lowering his head back to the pillow, putting him right at Jack’s eye level. It’s still mostly too dark to make out details; he is shadows, and eyes glistening with the pinpricks of other apartments from the outside. Jack twists his hold tighter in the fabric.

“Are you okay?”

 

Bitty hums, a thoughtful noise, and Jack hears the slight wet sound of him licking his lips before he says, confidently, “Yes.”

“Good.” He means it.

“I slept, and then I woke up, and I was thinking about how you were just down the hall, behind this door. Not a state away, not hours by train, not on the other side of a Skype call. Just… right here.”

“I’m always here, for you.”

Jack almost blurts it, emphatic and earnest, but it doesn’t get the expected reaction. Bitty _tsks_ gently, and twists his wrist around in Jack’s grip to affect his own hold on Jack’s arm.

 

“I know you think you mean that, but Jack. Honey, it’s not practical. There are going to be – I can’t expect you to be at my beck and call. It’s not fair. You’re not Atlas.”

The wildest part of Jack insists, _But you are the world_. The thought springs so sudden and intense, Jack is taken aback. He squeezes Bitty’s wrist, perhaps slightly too hard, and swallows the words down thickly.

 

When he can make his mouth work without betraying him, he tries to articulate himself as clearly as he can.

“I want to be this for you. I want… I can be there for you. You deserve it. I want to be better.” The _than him_ goes unsaid, but if the way Bitty exhales is any indication, he hears it anyway.

“You’re overcompensating, sweetheart.”

Jack can’t help his frown, the pressing urge to defend himself and contradict Bitty’s words. He bites down on his tongue to stop the slow, but Bitty’s hushed laugh is wry and knowing.

 

“I don’t need this ‘ _fragile – please handle with care_ ’ thing you’ve ascribed to me. I don’t need you to be perfect. Believe me, Jack Zimmermann, I am well aware of the most glaring of your imperfections. Number one being you want to take responsibility for everything around you.”

His tone is dry with irony, scratched and drawled in a way that cracks with fondness. It’s clearly not a criticism; it’s a compliment. It makes Jack reach to him with his free hand, searching in the dark and coming to wrap solidly around the back of Bitty’s neck.

“You don’t have to push, for me,” Bitty continues. “You don’t have to be… anxious, about me. I want what you are.”

“Flaws and all?”

“I prefer to think of it as dimensionality.”

 

The knot that has been sitting in the pit of Jack’s stomach loosens, slightly. He shuffles across the bed, bringing their bodies closer together, hands still clasped between them and caressing Bitty’s neck at the nape.

“Thank you.” He leans in, and finds Bitty’s forehead with his own. He breathes. “Thank you.”

Bitty sighs once more, and tilts his head up. Their noses rub alongside each other, before their lips meet, a brief pressing before he pulls back again. The breath he takes sounds like a gasp. He slides inches towards Jack, and seeks out his mouth again.

 

Bitty kisses like a dream. He leans in to Jack, knee shifting up to wrap around Jack’s thigh, and pulls a desperate moan from Jack’s throat with his tongue. He kisses slow, indulgent, melting and luscious and spreading warmth through Jack’s mouth. Jack tries to lick more of that feeling from Bitty’s lips.

 

At a scrape of Jack’s teeth, Bitty emits a gentle grunt. At Bitty’s fingers tracing tentatively at Jack’s collarbones, and Bitty’s tongue tracing teasingly at the seam of Jack’s lips, Jack outright groans. He pulls loose from Bitty’s hold on his wrist, and sends his hand roaming to Bitty’s thigh, searching for a hem that never comes.

“You’re not wearing pants,” Jack tells him against his mouth.

“You’re not wearing a shirt,” Bitty retorts. As though to prove his point, he lays a palm flat over Jack’s pectoral.

 

Jack does find the edge of Bitty’s underwear, and pushes his fingertips against it briefly before diverting and simply spreading his hand over Bitty’s ass, above the fabric. Into a kiss, Bitty lets loose a laugh, easy and free. Then, his blunt nails contract against Jack’s chest. He freezes.

“Sorry.”

When Jack opens his eyes, he can barely make out anything in the near-complete darkness. What little he can see involves the slight reflecting light in Bitty’s eyes, large as they are. With fingers still laid on Bitty’s ass, and lips tingling from loss of contact, and the depths of his belly pooling with warmth, Jack can’t access the part of his brain that will tell him why Bitty is apologizing.

 

The “huh?” he forces out is inarticulate and low. He hears the rustling of sheets, of Bitty leaning back a little further.

“I’m not laughing at you,” he intones.

“I know.” Jack chases Bitty’s lips, and miscalculates their height, huffing his own laugh against the tip of Bitty’s nose. “Sorry,” he says through planting a sweet and deliberate kiss there, then trailing his fingers from Bitty’s hair, to his jaw, to his chin, to find where his mouth sits.

 

“Clutch,” Jack mumbles triumphantly, smiling even as he claims it again, feeling Bitty’s curving smile in return, kissing him even through what sounds like a stifled giggle. Bitty presses closer, hitching his leg higher and using it to tug Jack against him, and Jack feels clever fingers threading into his hair.

 

He can hear Bitty’s breathing coming harsher, embedded with occasional, barely-there whines. He can hear his own unconscious noises, coming from somewhere deep within. He can hear the rustling of the sheets as Bitty rolls them, adjusting to straddle Jack’s waist, all hunched over. Jack chuckles, blinking his eyes open to find the room lightly grey with almost-dawn light, and Bitty hovering mere inches from his face.

“Hi.” He cups Bitty’s cheek, and traces his kiss-full lips with the tip of his thumb.

“This is our third kiss.”

Bitty settles his weight low on Jack’s stomach, the heat and solidity of him causing the coil of desire low in Jack’s abdomen to flare with interest. If he wasn’t stimulated before, he certainly is now, with Bitty shuffling back and putting pressure just at the base of Jack’s stirring cock.

 

“I think we’ve done a lot more than three.” He’s slurring, almost. His voice sounds heavy with sex, even to himself.

“Nope. You kissed me once in my kitchen,” Bitty leans in, and gifts one close-mouthed and tender, “and once in my doorway,” he adds his tongue to lick at Jack’s lips this time, a single velvety sweep, “and now I’m kissing you in your bed.”

 

This kiss is decadent, plying Jack’s mouth with softness and sensation. His nerves are alight, from the bruised feel of his lips, to the sparking thrill in his dick, now rubbing into the cleft of Bitty’s ass. He tents his knees, adjusting the angle of his crotch and instinctively seeking more friction. Bitty hums around Jack’s tongue, and retreats slightly.

 

“I – it’s…”

Jack flattens his knees to the bed, and drops his hips.

“Okay. Yeah, okay. That’s – yeah. Bits,” he insists, because Bitty is starting to gnaw at his swollen bottom lip, eyes averted and chin dimpling with tension. Jack slides his hands from where they had been cupping Bitty’s ass, under the sweatshirt to grip into his hips. He finds bare skin, warm and smooth. “We don’t have to.”

“I’m not trying to tease you, I swear.” It comes at a slightly-pleading whisper. Jack shakes his head, fierce as he can while lying down.

“You’re not. It’s not the right time. I get it.” In the corner of his eye, he can discern the building haze of the approaching morning. “I need to stop rushing things, anyway. This is better, for both of us.”

There’s an air to the look that Bitty gives him that suggests he doesn’t wholly believe what Jack’s saying, but he still nods and sits up, settling himself at the base of Jack’s ribs. Despite his actual wants – to take this slowly, to go at a pace that suits them both, to allow Bitty to feel relaxed – Jack’s erection is insistent. He wills it to go away, but looking up at Bitty, sitting straight-backed and comfortable on Jack’s chest, certainly isn’t helping.

 

He directs his attention out the window again, and rubs idle hands over Bitty’s thighs, slightly rough with hair. The sky is coming in steely, promising an overcast day.

 

“Why don’t you have curtains in here?”

Jack steals a sideways glance up at Bitty, and finds he’s being watched. He jerks his shoulder in an approximation of a shrug.

“Do I need them? Who would be looking in here?”

“Ain’t you ever seen _Rear Window_?” Bitty pauses, drawing lazy patterns across Jack’s collarbones with his fingers. “Or that one episode of _The Simpsons_?”

Jack snorts.

“You watch _The Simpsons_?”

“One of my teammates strapped me to a chair and made me watch it all. He said my knowledge of classic pop culture was woeful.” Without looking at him, Jack can hear the eye-roll in his voice. “Forgive me for being too current for my own good. And then there was the gayducation.”

That gets Jack looking at him again, confused laugh mingling with his bewildered, “What?”

“Gayducation: gay education. Apparently I was doing some disservice to my people by never having seen _Will and Grace_.”

“I’ve never seen _Will and Grace_ ,” Jack confesses. Bitty’s nose crinkles slightly as he smiles, eye teeth protruding slightly over his bottom lip.

“Shame on you, Mr. Zimmermann. Don’t you know you can’t date boys without watching ten seasons worth of sitcom?”

Jack hums, mock serious, and looks Bitty right in the eyes as he says, “Well someone better tell my boyfriend that, then.”

Lit by the gathering outside glare, Bitty’s cheeks color. Jack fixates, momentarily, on how expressive he is – how easy it is for Jack, who sometimes can’t help how narrow his focus and selective his observations are, to feel connected to him.

 

Then, he hears the echo of himself and what he just said.

“Oh. Or, um. I mean… you – I didn’t.”

“You didn’t mean that?”

Jack squints at him.

“I didn’t… _not_ mean it. I mean, unless you – we can just be… Shit. No.”

He holds Bitty’s gaze steady as he can. Directness. It’s gotten him this far.

 

“I want to be your boyfriend. Want you to be _my_ boyfriend. For a while now, to be honest.”

Bitty blinks.

“That’s.”

Jack waits to discover what _that_ is, but Bitty doesn’t continue. Rather, he drums his fingers on the bones of Jack’s shoulders, and holds his mouth firmly closed.

“That’s… what I want,” Jack prompts slowly, raising an encouraging brow. “To be clear about where we stand.”

“That’s what I want,” Bitty parrots, somehow slower, almost as though he is tasting every word as he says it. He lets his eyes slide shut and shakes his head, also slow, in a dazed and unfocused way. Jack rubs across his thighs again, attempting to ground him. Bitty opens his eyes on a sigh.

 

“I’m bein’ ridiculous again. Lord, listen to me. Of course I want that,” he iterates firmly. “Of course I do. Boyfriends. Yes.”

“You know what, on second thought, I’m not sure. I might date one of the other guys who sneaks in my room in the middle of the night to make out.”

Bitty scoffs with affected offense, tapping lightly at Jack’s chest.

“I didn’t come in here just to make out, you horndog. There are other ways to be close to a person.” He says it with a broad hint of irony, and there’s an opening for Jack to laugh, but instead he gathers Bitty’s hands between his own.

“I know there are.”

 

Bitty stares at him, for one beat, for two. Then he leans down into Jack’s space again, and leaves a gentle, pressing kiss at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re going to have to let up at some point, because I just don’t know if my poor heart can take this much sweetness.”

“Looks like I’ll have to give you some space right now.” The room has filled with morning sun, weak though it is. “I should try and get myself to function, start my way to the rink. I should talk to George before practice.”

Bitty hums sympathetically.

 

“You look so tired, honey.” He brushes gentle fingertips under Jack’s eye, where Jack assumes there must be dark circles. There’s no denying that sleep has been difficult of late.

“I’ll be able to nap later. I’ll just take a cold shower, have some coffee.”

“I’ll make you my hangover eggs.”

“I don’t have a hangover,” Jack laughs, starting to sit up and encourage Bitty to move off him. “And you don’t need to cook for me, Bits. I can look after myself.”

Bitty assumes a cross-legged position in the middle of the bed as Jack stands, sweatshirt riding up to reveal the blue of his underwear. He rolls his eyes.

“Sure you can, Mr. I’m-A-Terrible-Cook. What do you usually have on non-game days, a protein shake and a fistful of supplements?” He takes on a lofty tone, back to chirping. Jack can’t help but smile back at him, stopping halfway across the room. “And I know I don’t have to. I want to. I promise it’ll be yummy as hell.”

He drops Jack a wink that forces up a snatch of surprised laughter, and Jack’s expression feels fond even after he closes the bathroom door.

 

He does turn the shower cold, gritting his teeth against the shock of the spray, and after towelling off, spends too long in front of the mirror poking at the puffiness under his eyes. His pupils are pinpricks, only contributing to his general appearance as haggard and overworked. Pushing his wet hair back off his forehead, he accepts his fate: he’ll probably be a mess at practice again today, but will be able to catch up on sleep later – maybe even, Bitty’s schedule allowing, with another warm body in bed to lull him to calm.

 

Leaving the deodorant-clogged air of the bathroom, Jack is hit by the hearty aromas of a robust breakfast, something in the scent promising spice and warmth. He dresses, foregoing shoes at the thought of curling up with Bitty on the couch to share the food he has prepared. He pads down the hall, Bitty’s cooking beckoning undeniably, and calls out, “Bits, it smells so good.”

 

He expects to find Bitty in the kitchen, is planning on maybe sidling up behind him to give him a grateful hug. He’ll help Bitty make their plates, and fix a pot of coffee if it hasn’t been done already, and he’ll let himself be chirped for saying that baked eggs for breakfast is the epitome of fanciness.

 

He’s stopped in his intentions, though: Bitty steps from around the corner, apparently having been hovering by the pool table. His face is drawn, set with irritation. He’s still wearing Jack’s sweatshirt, but from the way he’s standing with his arms wrapped around his waist, he’s feeling much less comfortable in it than he was.

“You have a visitor.”

Jack follows the incline of his head out to the living room, where on his couch holding a box and wearing an expression of unmistakable fury, is Lukas Fitzgerald.

“Hey, Captain. I brought you a care package. Think of it as an apology.”

 


	14. Chapter 14

 

“You know, I’m not even fucking surprised.”

 

But Lukas definitely sounds surprised – the kind of surprised like finding your car has been towed, or having a no goal called when the shot was clearly in. Like walking in to a room to find your partner in bed with someone else.

 

Jack has to remind himself that that isn’t what happened. They hadn’t done anything until after Bitty had broken up with Lukas. They had, as Jack’s mom always said about wine, _let it breathe_ : opened things up, taken a taste, and then let it all mellow before drinking properly.

 

“Bits,” Jack starts absently, knowing Bitty has moved to lean against the wall behind him, but unable to look away from the box in Lukas’ hands, “you don’t have to be here. You can – do you want to take a shower? You – I’ll drive you to the station.”

“No, honey, I –”

“Oh, fuck,” Lukas bursts through cold laughter, shaking his head and pushing himself to his feet. He leaves the box on the couch. “So it’s like that, is it? He’s already started in with the fucking ‘honey’ and ‘sweetie’ and ‘darling.’ It’s super hot, right? Absolutely doesn’t feel like you’re fucking your damn grandmother.”

Jack bites out an aggressive “ _hey_ ,” and over his shoulder, Bitty scoffs. It’s an impatient noise, but with a barely-detectable current of hurt.

 

“He definitely has to be here, though. It’s all about him, huh? Like everything always has to be, it’s all about him.”

“You’re embarrassing yourself,” Bitty snaps, and Jack takes the opportunity to steal a glimpse at him. He’s still leaning against the wall, now with folded arms that create an illusion of boredom. Beneath that impression, though, Jack recognizes that the pink in his cheeks isn’t from anger; it’s from shame.

 

“Bits,” he says again, soft as he can while still being audible, and attempts to make his look as significant as possible when Bitty faces him: it’s an out, an excuse for Bitty to remove himself from the unpleasantness of the situation. After a moment, Bitty shrugs his shoulder, betraying the discomfort that Jack had felt was there.

“I’m going to put on pants,” he announces loftily, and stalks off down the hallway without so much as a backwards glance.

 

Left alone with Lukas, Jack tries to reign in his hostility. What doesn’t help is Lukas’ next jibe.

“Just does whatever he’s told, doesn’t he? Can see why that’d appeal to you. Always gotta be in control, dontcha Cap?”

“What is your problem, Lukas? Eh?”

It comes as a growl, Jack folding his own arms in an imitation of Bitty’s stance from before. He keeps his back straight, comfortable in his own size. He wins almost every face off for a reason.

“My problem, Cap, is that someone stole my boyfriend. Forgive me if I’m a little cheesed off about it.”

“You were going to break up with him,” Jack grits out, barely keeping the assault from his words any more.

“So you thought you’d just swoop in and help things along, _eh_?”

Lukas sounds mocking now, derisive, and leaking a coldness that Jack hasn’t seen from him before. He’s always been careless, but he’s never been cruel.

 

“Actually, we didn’t do anything until after he settled things with you. Because – would you fucking believe it? – he thought you deserved better than him going behind your back. It’s not like he knew about West Hollywood. Not like he knew the only thing stopping _you_ from cheating was the – what did you say?” Jack affects his own cold laugh, injecting every ounce of his defensiveness into the accusations he’s slinging. “You didn’t want to deal with the ‘bitch fit’ if he ever found out.”

 

Jack’s volume had risen as he went, and the room is left oppressively silent as Lukas’ mouth snaps closed and he glares at Jack with irate eyes. Finally, he spits, “I thought you were on my side.”

 

Jack can’t help the cynical snort he makes.

“I tried to be. Man, I tried real fucking hard to be.” His face feels worn, and his neck starts to ache again as he shakes his head slowly. “I didn’t want it to turn out this way. I didn’t expect it. I tried to be your Captain, Lukas. That’s all I wanted to do.”

Lukas mutters “Yeah, right,” under his breath, and Jack is struck, not for the first time, by how young he looks. He _is_ young. Painfully young. Younger than Bitty, somehow, despite the fact of their ages.

 

Jack sometimes feels like the only young part of him is his fear. He only feels like a child any more when he’s gasping for his breath. When he looks at Bitty, he sees now his history, and his bravery. There’s a tiredness in his fight to be that adds years to him. Lukas, though. He’s stunted, somehow. The closet has shrunk him, turned him in on himself. Jack’s knot of guilt re-tightens in his stomach, and he tastes the sourness of pity in his throat.

 

“I handled this wrong, from the start,” Jack begins, keeping his voice as measured and flat as he can, “and I can’t do more than apologize for that. There are a lot of things that I should’ve done differently. But Lukas, it’s – I… The difference between us, is that I love him.”

As soon as Jack says it, he can’t deny it. It’s true, in the simplest way. In the way he picked up a stick as a kid, and stepped onto the ice. Bitty, and his skate-carved lines of honesty – Jack loves him.

“I have for a while now, since before he ended it with you.”

 

Lukas’ hackles have lowered slightly, but his combative stare is screwed firmly in place.

“You didn’t have to – you. Y-you could have.”

He grinds out a frustrated sigh, visibly grappling with the fact of his emotions. His fists are curling at his sides, speaking louder than his mouth.

 

For a long time, Jack had let his body speak for him: had used his muscles, and his athleticism, and his skill on the ice, all to say what he was thinking. He spoke congratulations with back-slaps, and hurled insults through punches. Then, he woke up in hospital with an inescapable rawness in his throat. Then, therapy. Then, he was leading a hockey team with a chorus of voices, and he could feel the push deep within him to add his own to the mix.

 

Hockey carves its men in locker rooms and under the blades of those who came before them. It carves them silent, with only one way of making themselves heard.

 

To Lukas, Jack says, “I know. I’m sorry.”

Lukas’ jaw is still set, but his hands unfurl. He looks to the ground, but unsurprisingly doesn’t make a reply.

 

“Lukas, I think you should go.”

Bitty has appeared from the hallway, smelling of Jack’s deodorant and evidently having raided his wardrobe. He has paired one of Jack’s flannel shirts, sleeves rolled up, with his own jeans from the previous day. He could have been within earshot for any amount of time. He could have heard Jack’s moment of revelation. The pressure of mortification builds in Jack’s cheeks, feeling uncomfortably hot.

“I want you to go,” Bitty insists, arms folded once more, still carrying a brittle edge despite his new armour.

 

“I’m not done yet. They – I have to –” Lukas tries, tone still belligerent, but Bitty cuts across him.

“I want you to go,” he reiterates, the words seeming like recitation. Jack has the feeling he may have been practicing their delivery, while he was in the bathroom. “I know about that awful thing you said to Jack, and frankly I don’t want to be around you anymore.”

“I’m here to apologize,” Lukas protests, but it sounds so petulant it cancels out any intention. Jack even finds himself grimacing with the insincerity of it.

 

Bitty sidles up next to Jack, close enough that they are sharing warmth, but not touching. It turns them into a united front, but Jack guesses it might also be encouraging mutual comfort. He himself feels bolstered, having Bitty at his side.

“Lukas, I don’t think this is the time to do this. We all need to – cool off. Untangle,” he adds, for Bitty’s benefit, though he isn’t intending the slight flinch it causes.

“Don’t tell me what to do. We’re not at the rink.”

Whatever leeway Jack had made with Lukas seems to be tightened again, either because of Bitty’s obvious enmity, or the just-as-obvious fact of them together. Regardless of the reason, Jack finds Lukas’ renewed sulkiness only an irritation to the pain in his neck. Bitty seems to share the sentiment, sighing sharply.

“Please, Lukas, this macho pettiness is not flattering. This –” he gestures between Jack and himself – “actually has nothing to do with you, or the Falcs. I suppose the thing you never could get a handle on is the importance of compartments. You know – the private, the public. Samwell, Georgia. Trusted friends.”

His tone is heavily with implication, ringing of previous arguments and disappointments, but more than that, the substance of what he’s saying hits Jack thoroughly, and soaks to his core.

 

Lukas’ scowl has deepened, and he even takes a step forward as he bites out, “You still don’t fucking get any –”

“ _I tried to_ ,” Bitty shouts, and Jack truthfully startles a fraction. He lifts a hand to rest at the small of Bitty’s back, a small token of support which Bitty leans in to.

 

“I wanted to talk about it, but you never had anything to say. I tried to – I wanted to tell you, about my parents, about all of it, and you just – It’s not all about you, Fitz. As much as you want it to be, it’s not.”

Lukas’ mouth is forming a snarl, ready to retort and attack, so it seems like Jack’s turn to raise his voice.

“I think you should go.”

Though Lukas balks and deflates minutely before Jack’s eyes, he makes no move to the door.

“Really, Lukas. You need to leave. I’m going to talk to George, and then after I’ve done that, we can deal with –” he hesitates, searching for his tattered sense of professionalism, re-drawing the boundaries between them in his mind – “the incident. Figure out what the options are.”

“You promised you wouldn’t tell.” It comes out small, and shaken.

“I won’t. But right now, you’re still in my apartment, and I’m asking you to go.”

 

He does, finally. He trudges to the door with downcast eyes, still refusing to look at either of them, and Jack follows, closing the door after him. On re-entering the living room, he finds Bitty standing with a hand clamped over his eyes, which he rubs down his face before blinking in a bleary way.

“That,” he says, before pausing, and Jack wonders if this time he will finish the thought. He shakes his head in a dazed way, fixes Jack with a despondent look, and then continues.

 

“That was unprecedented. I didn’t mean to get so… Lord, I didn’t mean for you to have to see all that.” His mouth twists in an apologetic way. “The eggs are probably stone cold by now.”

Jack stares at him, momentarily lost, before the reference comes to him.

“Oh, god,” he laughs, casting a perfunctory look to the kitchen. “I’d forgotten. Shit. And it smelled so good.”

“They’ll be fine. I can reheat them.”

 

Bitty fiddles with Jack’s oven, popping the dishes of eggs inside using a tea towel as mitts. Jack brews a pot of coffee, and while it is steeping, he moves in close behind Bitty and wraps his arms around him. When it’s ready, they take their breakfast to the couch, and sit cross-legged with knees brushing to eat. The box that Lukas had brought is transferred to the coffee table, but left unopened.

 

Barely two bites in, Jack murmurs, “So good, Bits,” and Bitty hums thoughtfully around his own mouthful.

“You know it’s not about coming out, sweet-pea. Right?”

Jack flicks his gaze between his eggs, and Bitty’s considering expression, and makes an inquiring noise of his own.

“I just mean, I didn’t… I wasn’t upset that he was closeted. It would be hypocritical if I were.”

“But,” Jack swallows, “it’s… I don’t want to be. Closeted.”

“I know that,” Bitty says to his eggs. “I just don’t want you to – I told you, you don’t need to push for me. I’m not expecting – I don’t need you to use pride tape and call a press conference and… appear on the cover of _Out_ naked and covered in glitter. Although I wouldn’t say no to seeing that, interview or no.”

He throws Jack a lidded smirk, and Jack’s responding chuckle huffs out of him.

“Lord knows I’ll still want to date you even if going public is never in the cards.”

 

Jack leans to deposit his eggs next to the box on the coffee table, turning back to Bitty to lay palms on his knees.

“Hey,” he starts seriously, meeting Bitty’s eyes and holding the gaze, “one game at a time, one period at a time, shift by shift. I’m not being impulsive anymore, remember? We’ve got to act like grown-ups.”

As Bitty’s smile builds, and he nods almost serenely, Jack lays on a smirk of his own.

 

“And besides. I don’t know if we can call it ‘dating’ when we haven’t been on a date yet.”

 


	15. Chapter 15

 

Jack and Bitty date. It shouldn’t be that straightforward, but it is. Their interactions revert to what they had been before – before Bitty stayed the night, before they kissed, before they shared their feelings. Just, _before_.

 

They text, and Skype, and Jack receives a running commentary of Bitty’s days, direct to his pocket. The difference, really, is that now he relaxes into the adoring looks his face wants to make. He permits himself to add on the sweet nothings that trip into his head: “you’re amazing,” and “I’d love to see that,” and “I can’t stop thinking about you.” In return, he gets: “my handsome man,” and “I’m so proud of you,” and “everything you do just amazes me, sweetheart.”

 

Bitty blows him kisses across internet connections, and they land on Jack’s cheeks, his chin, his forehead, and lips, when travel carries Bitty into his arms each weekend, and some weekdays too.

 

‘The incident’ – because that’s what it has become, every time it’s referenced, by Jack and George and Marty and Third, and some guy from P.R. who had been asked to draft press releases for every kind of outcome – is dealt with, in a way. Jack tells George he doesn’t want action taken. She pushes back. He probably comes across as defensive and naïve. She talks to him with a strained kind of compassion.

 

Jack receives a letter containing a written apology, ostensibly from Lukas’ hand. The whole team gets dragged through sensitivity training again, and the management issues a statement to the entire franchise reiterating their stance on discriminatory language. Jack’s name is kept out of it, but the boys all know. Lukas’ name is as well, but still. The boys all know.

 

Jack sighs about it to Bitty over Skype, again not using names (but still. Bitty knows) and receives sympathetic hums in return.

“I’m so happy you’ve got that support, sweetheart. It’s great that they listened to what you wanted. I mean, you know how I feel about the whole thing but – it didn’t happen to me, obviously.”

They compartmentalize: Jack and Bitty; Jack and the Falcs; Bitty and Samwell.

 

“I think Ransom is starting to reckon something’s up with me and Holster,” Bitty jokes, rolling his eyes as he lounges across Jack’s couch with a stack of ignored flashcards in hand. “The big idiot keeps cornering me and asking for deets, and the boys are noticing. I’ve told Holster to mind his p’s and q’s, but he’s still all turned around on it. He was chirpin’ me about buying his own ‘Zimmermann’ jersey the other day, but I think he might’ve been partway serious.”

Jack chuckles roughly, snatching up one of Bitty’s cards to fiddle with.

“Tell him he can have at it. Only really helping us, eh?”

Bitty had recently recounted an event to Jack in which Shitty, on a visit from Harvard, had jokingly called Bitty a “traitor” for owning a ‘Zimmermann’ jersey, but not a ‘Fitzgerald’ one. Bitty had laughed it off with a shaken head and a dismissive hand, entertained by the idea that their long-term plans be foiled by something as silly as a jersey bearing Jack’s name, but Jack had been momentarily caught by Bitty not having one for Lukas. There are countless moments like this, in which another shard of Bitty’s previous relationship slides into place for Jack, and he feels more concrete in understanding the isolation that Bitty had felt.

 

Jack listens. He lets Bitty’s ceaseless chattering lull him to serenity, and asks his probing questions. He learns more about jam-making than he ever thought he would. He talks, through which Bitty falls to quiet and allows him time to arrange his thoughts. He murmurs inanely about documentaries he watches, and things his teammates do, and his dad hounding him about a long overdue game of golf, and Bitty takes it all in with rapt attention.

 

Bitty claims Jack’s kitchen as pretty much his own. The habit forms of Jack texting _‘what do you need?’_ in anticipation of Bitty’s visits. He discovers a local greengrocer on his own street that, until then, had gone ignored. Within a few visits, the plump and smiling lady behind the counter knows him by sight, and asks him how he’s doing. He’s able to tell her, “really good,” and mean it.

 

Bitty bakes pies, and muffins, and bread. Jack puts up with his loud and buoyant music, and lets himself be pulled into dancing by floury hands. The next day, Jack takes a home-made PB&J to work, and as soon as he finishes it, wishes he had six more. He tells Bitty so by text, and instead of an emoji response, gets a flirtatious photo in his inbox. He returns seriously that from then on, he’ll need one before every game. Bitty complies, with both sandwiches and photos, and rapidly gets bolder. Jack reclines in plane seats after roadies, and feels the leer on his face as he caresses Bitty’s lips and skin and hard lines, with his eyes.

 

They push up on the end of the season, but their playoff berth is well secured. Jack checks his phone after the game to find an uncountable number of increasingly excited messages from Bitty, and three from an unknown number:

 

> 11:17  
>  congrats man

 

> 11:17  
>  its holster btw

 

> 11:17  
>  i stole ur # off bitty’s phone lmao

 

Jack transcribes his very real chuckle – _haha cool. Ta buddy_ – and, on informing Bitty of this turn of events, learns that “you weren’t even saved under your name! How did he find you? I swear, one of these days these boys are going to be the death of me because they truly won’t let me live. And not to mention this flagrant invasion of privacy – mine and yours. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind, don’t mistake that.”

 

The truth of it though, is that it doesn’t concern Jack so much. As an acquaintance, Holster appears to expect nothing of Jack, although one afternoon does send Jack a photo of Bitty removing bagel bites from their oven, with the caption ‘ _#exposed_ ’. Though his main goal seems to be to irritate and embarrass Bitty – “A true friend,” Bitty laments with extra dramatics – Holster also affirms something for Jack: that he and Bitty are real, and existing outside of Jack’s own head.

 

The other thing that renders their relationship something tangible is the brooding silence and dazed apathy of Lukas Fitzgerald. While the Falcs’ final games of the season were, for Jack, filled with triumph and high energy, Lukas had met them with an unwavering kind of resignation that seemed to suggest he’d given their run up for a loss. Not only had he ignored Jack though every practice and game and time they passed in the halls, he was clearly refusing to take on any directions from the other As and members of the coaching team.

 

As such, Jack is unsurprised when Lukas is first berated at full-volume in the locker room, and then pulled aside for a private meeting. They are days out of their first playoff game, and performance like Lukas’ is a key deciding factor in who makes lines and who makes bench.

 

What Jack doesn’t invite himself to think about is the third, definitely-worse option that Lukas could be presented with. Regardless, he is dragged into it when Lukas reverts to his old ways, and ambushes Jack in the nook as he is setting down a pie.

“I need to talk to you.” Demand, not request. Jack resists raising an eyebrow.

“Okay,” he manages, mild and polite. In pursuit of that politeness, he tacks on, “Pie?”

The look which Lukas gives him is, in short, withering. Jack shrugs, and portions himself a small slice.

 

In his seat across from Jack, Lukas cuts a deflated and waning figure. His folded arms seem as much holding him together as they are a defensive barrier, and his face still carries the hollowness of weeks prior. The darkness under his eyes recalls conversations that have been had with Jack personally: “pull your head in,” and “boys will be boys,” and “just get yourself over the line.” For Lukas, though, there is no line – it’s all one road, being built a brick at a time with materials that he has no control over.

 

“They want to bump me. Eagles.”

Jack swallows.

“It’s not a death sentence,” he says, but doesn’t mean it. “It’s an opportunity. The boys out there are good; you can build back up, and they’ll probably call you back in a little down the line.”

Lukas rolls his eyes, and though it’s undoubtedly rude, Jack can’t really blame him. These platitudes are just that – the things that players tell themselves about farm teams to deaden the sting of failure.

“They’re giving me a game,” Lukas mumbles at the table, eyes landing somewhere around Jack’s plate of pie, “and then it’ll roll over. Skin of my fucking teeth.”

Watching him carefully, Jack lifts a forkful of pie to his mouth and chews with deliberation.

 

“So they want you to earn it.”

Lukas scoffs.

“They want me to beg for it. Which I did. I – I fuckin’ apologized. And I wrote the letter.”

“You wrote that letter?”

A frown flickers between Lukas’ brows; he can probably make out Jack’s skepticism.

“Shitty helped me. And he yelled at me, too. _When did you turn into a bigoted fuckin’ caveman, brah_.”

The impersonation he does is a near-perfect copy of Shitty’s broad Bostonian twang, and Jack finds himself burying a smile in more pie.

“Right,” he says, after swallowing again. It comes out a little sticky around the remnants of blueberry filling. “But, I mean. That doesn’t have anything to do with your game. It’s playoffs. We need… we need a strong team.”

 

He hesitates even as he says it, but mincing the sentiment isn’t going to benefit either of them. Surprisingly, Lukas seems to hear it. He nods, small, a quick jerk of a movement.

“They said if I pick it back up, I can – they’ll put me in for the second game too. But there’s no bench. It’s on a line, or in fucking New Haven.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” Jack tries again. “It’s a development thing. They’ll probably call you back in,” he repeats.

 

When Lukas finally looks up, it’s to glare at him.

“You can say that. I can’t. You’ve probably never even had anyone _think ‘_ AHL’ near you. You’ve played every fuckin’ game you haven’t missed for injury. What have I got? Barely two fucking shifts a game and a bullshit score for the season?” His voice is shaking slightly, a barely-detectable fracture in each word. “They put me there, and then trade me to some nothing fucking nowhere team, and then what? There’s no-one. I – there won’t be –”

He chokes the final word into silence, furiously turning away to glare at the flooring.

 

He’s right. That is something Jack has known – the thing that has been keeping the tension in Jack’s neck. That wherever Lukas is sent, he’ll take his fear with him.

 

“This is what you need to understand,” Jack begins, drawing Lukas’ eyes back from floor to table. “What happens on this team is the business of this team, which means it’s my business especially. Mine, and Marty and Third’s. If I was making lines, I would put you on one. You got good hands, and you can really make connections when your head’s in it. That’s all I’m concerned with.” He says the last part slowly, seriously, and clears his throat slightly before continuing. “Anything else? Doesn’t come on the ice. After this all, once we’ve kept you in games and we – you know –” Jack raps his knuckles on the wood of the table, inclining a significant brow at Lukas, who is now looking at him directly – “then and only then do we talk about Bittle and I. I said I was sorry, and I do mean that, but we can’t bring any of it into playoffs. Not if you want to stay on this team.”

 

Lukas blinks, but the rigidity is gone from his face. He seems closer to accepting than resigned, closer to determined than defensive. Slightly closer to appreciative than resentful.

 

“And,” Jack adds, working the attention he’s gained, setting down his fork and leaning towards Lukas with a meaningful look, “you’ve got three Captains. Use us all. That’s what we’re there for.”

Lukas has the self-awareness to appear a touch sheepish, his agreeing nod coming at a twitch.

“Alright.” Jack picks up his fork again. “What I’m planning on doing is going home to watch some tape, and getting to sleep early. I run in the morning, eat something Nate-approved. I’m usually the first guy here, to be honest.”

He keeps his tone mild, but the implication is clear. Sneaking a glance to Lukas to find him nodding again, this time more decisively, confirms it was picked up.

“Yeah,” Lukas says, already standing and making to tuck in his chair. “Yeah, Jack, I – I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

 

He’s only a few steps away when he turns back.

“Jack? I am sorry. About... you know. And the other morning. I didn’t – I never… I. Just. That’s why I made the box. I want you to know that… that I’m happy, I guess. I’m happy that you’re bi.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, instead turning to scuttle his way out of the room, leaving Jack with a partway hysterical feeling.

 

It’s the thought that counts, probably.

 

The box is still waiting unopened under Jack’s coffee table when he gets home, where it has sat since he moved it after returning from work the day after Bitty had stayed over. He pulls it out after setting up the TV to play over their last game, remote within reach should he need to review specifics.

 

The box rattles slightly when he shakes it. Inside, the contents isn’t as varied as the one he had made for Lukas so many months ago. There are a lot of flavoured protein bars, and two books: a biography on his Uncle Wayne, and (to Jack’s hilarity) one on his own father, titled _Bruises, Broads, and Booze: the Bad Bob Book of Old Time Hockey_. Jack snaps a photo and texts it to Bob, bearing the words ‘ _a gift_ ’ as the caption. Underneath the books, though, is a roll of tape – rainbow-patterned tape. Jack has never actually handled a tube of it himself before. The tape has a handwritten note stuck to it, just a single word and signature on a Post-It.

 

> _Sorry  
>  \- Fitz_

Lukas’ writing is malformed, clumsy and earnest just like the other contents of the box. Jack tips all the protein bars back inside, and lurches to his feet to shuffle to the kitchen. He puts them in a cupboard with the ones he bought himself. It’s handy, if nothing else. The note, he sticks to the fridge.

 

The fridge is already bearing a number of Post-Its, sweet nothings from Bitty that came on the tops of sandwiches for game days. There are only a couple, but Jack hopes that through the playoffs, the collection will expand. Lukas’ note, he doesn’t put near Bitty’s, which form a cluster on the freezer section. He fits it, neat and straight, into the topmost right corner of the lower door, where the unstuck part lifts and curls away from the metal surface. He smooths it over with the edge of his palm.

 

In the living room, Jack takes the books and slots them into empty spaces on his shelves, rooming them with other volumes written by people he’s never met about people he has. Jack settles onto his couch, sends off one more text – _thank you for the box_ – and presses ‘play’ on the remote. Then, he dials a number. It rings a few times before it’s picked up.

 

“Hi, Bits. How was your day?”

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

 

Jack’s life comes to revolve around numbers. It’s counting days until games, minutes until shifts, tallying passes that connect and points that land. It’s sixteen wins to go, fifteen, fourteen, thirteen. It’s being three weeks into playoffs, but only on the second round. It’s having been with Bitty for two months, or two-and-a-half if Jack counts from their first kiss, or maybe three if he counts from them talking through their feelings. It’s something more like seven, if he counts from the moment of being in love.

 

There are thirteen notes from Bitty on Jack’s fridge, and all of them bear a tiny heart next to Bitty’s name. Round two is won four-one, and there are seven days to wait for the first Conference Final, and it’s forty-five minutes’ drive to Samwell.

 

“Sweet-pea don’t you – I mean, you should be near the rink. Your trainers, your coaches. I don’t see how I can’t come up there, way I have been.”

“But I want to give you the second part of your birthday present.”

There’s a lengthy pause, and Bitty mutters something unintelligible. Before Jack can ask after it, he retorts, “The first part was already too much,” with a sort of resignation-infused affection.

“You can never have too much workout gear, Bittle.”

“Says the man who owns nothing he didn’t acquire through his job.”

The argument is clearly all posturing, unable to hold any weight when both of them know that Bitty had called Jack directly on opening the gift to scream into the phone. That unbridled excitement stands as the best sound Jack has ever heard – though he isn’t opposed to finding another one to knock it off its pedestal.

 

“I wouldn’t stay for the whole week, Bits,” Jack persists, unable to let go of the idea now that he’s had it, “just a night. I’ll get a room, at one of those hotels that parents stay at when they’re visiting. We can get breakfast together. You can show me the river. Your rink. I want to see the windows.”

“You’ll love them,” Bitty says automatically, before falling to silence again.

“I don’t have to come.”

Jack stretches his leg out in front of him, reaching for his toes with his free hand. On mute, the TV plays highlights from that evening’s game; Jack watches himself score, and circle around into a colliding hug with Tater. On the phone, Bitty protests.

“No, no, I’d love for you to come. I want you to come. It’s just – this is sneaking around, but that would be _actual_ sneaking around. There’s no way I’d be able to smuggle you onto campus without the boys finding out, if only because they’ll be able to follow the beacon of ‘ _I’m the best power forward in the league_ ’ that oozes from you like a cologne.”

Jack laughs his semi-incredulous “what?” but doesn’t make further effort to interrupt. He lets Bitty think, and speak.

 

“I just don’t know how we’d explain it away. Lord, they’ll want selfies. And it’s not that I don’t trust them – I do, more than anyone – it’s just that… We don’t have to do this. They’d make assumptions, and – well, you’ve seen what Holster’s like. You won’t have a minute of peace, I can guarantee. They’ll be all up in your business thinking they’re your best friends.”

Jack hums around his thought, trying to dissolve it to nothing. It’s unhelpful. It’s not the right time, quite yet. Bitty, unnoticing of Jack’s restraint, continues in his diarizing.

“But then again, I suppose us being friends isn’t really an imperative for them to stay quiet. There’s nothing threatening about having a friend. They wouldn’t see how being your friend is anything but cause for boasting. Oh, goodness, don’t get me wrong honey – I want to shout it from the rooftops, I absolutely do. I mean, my mama didn’t raise a bragger, but when it’s you who’s making me this happy… Mother Mary, maybe we should just tell them. Sure would be a heck of a lot easier.”

 

There’s a hint of wearied teasing in the conclusion, something gratingly ironic. It would be a joke that Jack would laugh at, normally. Instead, he blurts, “Okay. Yes.”

 

Bitty’s non-response builds to the point of Jack actually pulling the phone from his ear to check the call hasn’t disconnected. On the TV, there’s a replay of a fight from the previous day’s Aces game. They’re moving through to game six. In Jack’s assessment, they’ll take round two to the full seven.

“Bits?”

“You. You can’t just – _Jack._ What happened to not being impulsive?”

“It’s not impulsive if we talk about it,” Jack returns. He feels it’s fair, if a little patronizing.

“You’re doing it again,” Bitty accuses him after a moment, voice hardening. “It’s not a competition.”

“I’m not trying to make it into one.” Jack is getting defensive. He can hear it.

 

He takes a deep breath, and pinches the bridge of his nose, sinking back into the couch cushions. His thoughts are not forming themselves, coming instead in stuttered blocks if ideas that he can’t find the words for. They are images only – he and Bitty joking with Bitty’s friends; eating dinner with the Falcs; watching a game with the whole group together, right where Jack is sitting that moment.

 

He opens his eyes, and the commentators are laughing about something.

 

“I just want,” he tries, but can’t find the thread to continue on.

“My friends aren’t your friends.” Bitty sounds vaguely distant, tone gone recognisably flat. He is, however, still speaking with the same calmness that soothes the loudness in Jack’s mind at the worst of times. He sighs, and waits for Bitty to continue.

 

“They aren’t media trained, and they haven’t had to keep a secret like this before. I only think we should lay some foundations, before we…” He snorts briefly, humour eking back into his speech, and Jack feels his own mouth twitching with a returned smile. “Before we drop a house on them.”

Jack scoffs his own small laugh.

“You want to have their backs.” Bitty makes a tiny noise of agreement. “They’d have your back too.”

“You’re relentless.”

It sounds as much compliment as admonishment. Jack takes it as encouragement.

 

“You know if I had a different job, we would’ve met each other’s friends by now.”

“That’s not fair, Jack. You know that’s not fair. We can’t sit here and pretend we’re in the same boat as other couples, as much as I would like us to be.”

“You’re right,” Jack counters, aware he’s coming across terse again, but unable to stop it. “There are a lot of balls in the air. But, bud – Bitty. I said, from the start, that I wanted to tell everything. That I wanted to be with you. I don’t get why you’re –”

“And then you said you wanted to take our time. You said you needed to stop rushing. I’m just trying to –” he cuts off in a sigh, and Jack immediately feels the heat of shame in his face. He swallows.

 

“Shit.” Jack swallows again. “I wish I could touch you right now.”

Bitty sighs again, but this time it’s a relenting sound.

“It’s not impulsive. I swear it’s not. Wait, let me –” he raises his voice slightly, speaking over Bitty as he says Jack’s name through a tired breath. “Listen to me. I’ve thought about it. I really, really have. I should have told you, earlier, what I was planning. It’s step one,” he emphasizes, and from the way Bitty sighs this third time, he seems to be understanding.

“I didn’t want to assume anything.”

“I should’ve… let you in. On what I was thinking.”

“So strong and silent,” Bitty chirps, but there are unavoidable currents of care. “Okay. Let’s talk about it.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jack calls Georgia from the road, and tells her that should he be needed, he’ll be staying with his boyfriend for the night. To her credit, she barely misses a beat before reminding him of practice the next day, joking in the same breath, “Though you’re the last guy I need to be acting as a P.A. for. Snowden, on the other hand…”

There’s a moment of stilted chuckling, and a moment more of bated silence, then –

“Is this it, then? Time to crack out that top-secret folder? Get the troops in order?”

Jack laughs again, appreciating her ease and the slight cheerfulness of the whole situation. She has been working on this, with P.R., in the background of Jack’s career. There have been things formulated ever since Jack ambushed her on her morning run three years ago.

“Not quite. I’m going to introduce him to the team, though. Soon. Not soon-soon, but… soon.”

George makes a distinct noise of surprise.

“It _is_ it. Hell, kid. Must be serious.”

“I –”

Jack bites it back, thankfully, just before he announces about loving Bitty to the second person who isn’t Bitty. He shakes himself as best he can with two hands on the wheel, glancing at his phone in the cup holder.

 

“I’m telling you, aren’t I?”

It’s as much an admittance as saying it outright. George seems to hear it too, if her thoughtful hum is anything to go by.

“That’s just… Jack, that’s great to hear. And totally your personal life, so thank you for sharing it with me.”

“Boss. Didn’t we already do this?”

They are pretty much the same words she had said to him when he came out, even though it had been spilled out with a plea for forgiveness.

“Yes, well. Honestly, we were sort of getting to the point where we thought it was going to be a non-issue, in the public sense. Or maybe a non-event. I don’t know. And then that thing, with Fitzgerald…”

“That’s not going to continue,” Jack promises. It’s the most he can say, and it falls short of explaining anything at all. That’s probably why George scoffs.

“You’re damn right it’s not. There have been more than a few choice words exchanged about him behind the scenes, let me tell you. We’re not waiting for another blow-up; we’re waiting for a pinky-toe over the line.”

“He’s – this series, though. He’s pulling up.”

“On ice, sure. You don’t need me to confirm that for you, Jack.”

The implication is obvious: Lukas’ performance in the playoffs, decent though it has been, isn’t the only factor he’s being scrutinized for. Trade season is still upcoming, and Jack is still the only one in the franchise who knows what Lukas is so scared of.

 

“Listen, Boss. I’m on the road. Can I – I mean. Thank you, for being… yeah. Thanks for listening. And I’ll let you know, uh, if there are… other developments.”

“We’re ready for anything, kid. Not like we haven’t had time to prepare.”

 

Jack hears it like a chant even after he hangs up, and it’s unavoidable, it’s true, it’s sinking deep to his core. He’s ready. He’s had the time to prepare.

 

* * *

 

 

“They’re going to yoller all over you, I can feel it.”

“ _Yoller_?”

Bitty’s kitchen is much different to stand in in the light of day, without the weight of expectation on Jack’s shoulders. The curtains are the same colour as Bitty’s shirt – something which Jack delighted in pointing out, because it got Bitty’s cheeks turning the shade of the peach skin he is currently stripping off with his knife.

“Yelling, hollering. Yollering. No matter, it’ll be loud. And they’ll probably want to hug you.”

“Because I’m your boyfriend?”

Jack feels leery as he says it, leaning into Bitty’s space and getting an elbow to his stomach for his troubles.

“ _Stop_. I have a knife. And no, they’ll be plenty excited about Jack Zimmermann bein’ in the kitchen without knowing that we kiss on the regular.”

“Do we?”

 

Jack re-angles himself behind Bitty and away from the knife, ducking again to press a heated, open-mouthed kiss to the jut of bone underneath his ear.

“You’re ridiculous,” Bitty tells him, but turns his head and allows Jack to kiss his mouth.

 

It’s barely a moment before there is the clatter of Bitty dropping the knife to the counter, and Bitty’s hands wrap themselves around Jack – one on his wrist, guiding it along Bitty’s own hipbone, and the other on Jack’s neck, pulling him down further. Jack is fit against his back, gripping into his hips, fingers sliding under his apron and creeping their way to the front of his jeans, and Bitty moans briefly into his mouth, but still pulls back slightly.

“Jack.”

“You said we have time.”

“We do. I – Lord, I’m all worked up.” His face has gone recklessly pink, eyes a touch glassy. “My hands are too peachy.”

 

The moment he says it, Jack registers it; the sticky, uncomfortable feeling of drying peach juice, on his wrist and neck – kisses of their own, left by Bitty’s fingers.

“Ugh.”

Bitty laughs, spinning his way out of Jack’s hold and lifting his offending hands aloft.

“I know. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. We can – You go wash up, and I’ll get this in the oven, and then we’ll have a whole forty minutes to kill.”

“A whole entire forty minutes, huh? Wow, Bittle. Who knows what we could get up to, with time like that?”

 

Bitty fixes him with a shrewd look, but it’s negated by the lust still settled in his eyes. They’re inescapably dark.

“The bathroom’s upstairs, on the right. Apologies in advance if there’s any… just, anything.”

Jack snorts, and kisses Bitty’s cheek on the way past.

 

The Canadian flag tacked to the wall on the first floor landing makes him chuckle, and a glance to the left makes him idly wonder which door is Bitty’s. He’ll find out, soon enough. The bathroom itself is clearly home to jocks. It’s easy enough to pick out Bitty’s towel to dry his hands and neck – it’s the only one not on the floor. The soap he uses claims to be scented by sandalwood and citrus, which he suspects is also Bitty’s influence.

 

He’s surreptitiously smelling his hands as he steps out of the bathroom, which is how he freezes when he notices the guy standing in the hallway.

“Jack Zimmermann,” the guy observes.

“Yeah,” Jack says, stupidly.

They stare at each other, and Jack lowers his hands to shove into his pockets. He considers calling out to Bitty to rescue him. The guy’s eyes are wide and unblinking, mouth open enough to betray a hint of braces. His hair is sticking up on one side, like he’s just woken from a lengthy sleep. To add to that, he’s wearing a Sharks hoodie and a pair of teal-and-black pajama pants. Perhaps following Jack’s gaze, he looks down at himself, and announces, “I’m a Sharks fan.”

 

It hangs in the air for a moment, and then he looks back up.

“I’m sorry. I mean, I like you too! The Falcs are my second favourite team, for sure. And I really wanted you on my fantasy league team, but Dex got you instead. I’m sort of more – I do kind of like Snowden more, but that’s nothing to do with you! I’m a goalie as well. And he’s – y’know, he’s like, so quick. That shutout the other night, I was like – _wow_. Uh. I. Your goals, were. They was great. You’re great. Jack Zimmermann.”

Jack doesn’t know what to do. He contemplates yelling for Bitty again. He manages a nod, and mutters a “thanks,” and makes to walk down the stairs in hopes that this guy will follow him and they can then let Bitty smooth it all over.

 

“I met Henrik Lundqvist once.”

It sticks Jack to his place again. There’s a comfort, at least, in the fact that this guy seems as nervous and unsure as Jack is himself.

“Oh. Cool. He’s a cool guy.”

The guy’s face snaps into a self-effacing grimace quicker than Jack can really track.

“Right. Yeah. You probably know him. You probably hang out all the time. You probably like… get coffee, and stuff.”

It makes Jack laugh, and some of the tension in his posture dissolves.

“Not really, no. We did All Star together last year, y’know? I’d like to play with him again.”

The guy is nodding vigorously, grimace turning to teeth-baring smile, when a mildly-concerned “Honey?” floats up the stairs.

 

It’s Jack’s turn not to blink. He fixes the guy – Bitty’s teammate, his housemate, his _friend_ – with his own wide-eyed stare, stuck in the dilemma of what to say. He’s being observed curiously, almost suspiciously now. A set of feet sound on the stairs, and Jack manages to tear his eyes away to watch Bitty ascending.

“There you are,” Bitty sighs. “I was gettin’ to thinking that you’d got lost somehow. I got the pie in the oven, and was waiting down in the kitchen all on my lonesome –”

“Bittle. There’s…”

Jack finishes with a gesture to the guy, and from the way Bitty whips to looking over, he might have pointed out a snake coiled on the landing.

“Chowder! You’re here.” Bitty pauses, hovering at the top of the stairs, caught between the pair of them. “I knocked on your door.” He sounds mildly accusing.

“I was asleep. I was up until like six with an assignment, and then I took a nap after my morning class, and – I’m sorry Bitty, I didn’t know.” He visibly gulps, and shuffles between his bare feet for a moment. “I won’t tell anyone,” he promises. He’s earnest, and meeting Bitty’s eyes directly. Jack likes him.

 

At the assurance, Bitty just about melts. He just about chuckles “Chowder,” hopping up the final step to cross to Jack and tug him by the elbow. Jack goes along without resistance.

“Chowder, this is Jack Zimmermann.”

Jack offers his hand, and the guy – Chowder, apparently – shakes it.

“He’s here because… I mean, he – _We_. We’re.”

He takes an audible breath, and Jack looks down to him to find he’s looking back. Jack nods, as small as he can, and Bitty bites down on his bottom lip.

“Me and Jack are dating,” Bitty says firmly, turning back to his friend. “And he’s here so we can tell the boys.”

 

Chowder grins again, raising an unambiguous eyebrow at Bitty.

“Oh my god, Bitty. Everyone’s gonna shit.”

 

* * *

 

 

Chowder joins them in the kitchen to wait for the pie, and Jack sips silently at a glass of water as Bitty fields his endless questions: _how did you meet?_ (“I was in Providence,” which comes lofty and evasive); _how long has it been?_ (“oh, three months or so,” which sends a thrill through Jack’s stomach); _do any of the boys know?_ (“Holster, unfortunately. And… Fitz,” which hangs in the air a moment).

 

When the pie is taken out, Chowder groans theatrically.

“It’s been _ages_ since we’ve had lemon meringue, Bitty.”

“This is for Ransom.”

“Why does Ransom get his favourite? Unfair.”

“Yeah, Bits. Why does Ransom get his favourite?”

Bitty throws an unimpressed glare in Jack’s direction, and hurls his oven mitt along with it, which Jack snatches out of the air with a laugh.

“Ransom gets his favourite because I feel badly about Holster knowin’, and not him. And he’ll pretend like he’s not upset, but he will be. There’s nothing like a slice of honey peach to cheer your spirits.”

 

Before Jack can make any under-the-breath dry comment about a slice of honey peach for himself, Bitty’s claim is met by a noise from the hallway. It could be called, in Bitty’s own terms, a “yoller.” It is followed by three bodies launching themselves through the kitchen doorway, a tumble of limbs that Jack takes a moment to discern as containing people who are, in varying ways, familiar to him.

 

There is Holster, who is obvious. The one with the moustache, whose face Jack can match a voice to, is Shitty, Bitty having summoned him from Harvard for the occasion. The third guy, Jack recognizes from the locker room when Bitty had visited at the start of the season. Elimination says he’s Ransom.

 

Bitty has to raise his voice to be heard over the shouting.

“Y’all, do we always have to be so loud? Calm down!” He crosses to a cupboard to lift down plates. “And with company here and all.”

The boys do indeed quieten, but whether that’s due to Bitty’s admonition or noticing Jack’s presence remains to be seen.

“Oh. Hey, man. Didn’t see you there.” Holster approaches to shake Jack’s hand, and Jack feels a fierce surge of gratitude. Behind him, Ransom makes a sort of choking noise.

“Jack Zimmermann, the man and the fucking legend.” Shitty queues in for his own handshake, and again Ransom makes a sound of disbelief.

 

“I was hoping to have pie for this conversation. And Lardo. Where is she?”

“She was finding a parking space,” a newcomer retorts, tossing a set of keys onto the kitchen counter. They skid to a stop next to the pie on its wire rack. “And what do you call that?” She points at the pie, eyes flicking briefly to Jack.

“It’s bubbling still. We can’t eat it yet.”

Bitty sounds tense. Jack has the urge to wrap an arm around his shoulders, but. But, there are a lot of strangers in the room. But, it would jump the gun on Bitty’s announcement. But, he’s creating enough of a disturbance as it is.

 

“Not that I wouldn’t love to tear into that hot, juicy offering right there –” Shitty’s description is met with a laugh, a groan, and a “Jesus, Shits,” from the girl with the car keys – “I kind of more want to know why he’s here.” He jerks a thumb in Jack’s direction. “No offence, brah.”

Jack shrugs dismissively. Bitty has assumed his typical posture of discomfort, wrapping his arms around his own waist, but from the way it’s paired with a casual lean to the counter, it seems to betray anticipation more than fear. Regardless, Jack sidles a bit closer, close as he can without them touching. Bitty glances to him, before sweeping his gaze across his gathered friends.

 

“Right,” he murmurs. “Right.” It’s louder this time. “So. I have assembled you all here today –” there’s a quiet snicker from the girl, Lardo, and Bitty throws her a fleeting smile – “to tell you something very important. It cannot leave this room.”

“Bits, are you signing to the Falcs too?”

Shitty asks it through a grin, voice running with a current of pride that Jack can more than sympathize with. Bitty meets it with a derisive bark of a cackle.

“Oh, very funny. Real laugh riot.”

“You could get scouted,” Jack mutters. From the way all six heads in the room snap to looking at him, it’s louder than he intends. “It could happen.” He sounds defensive now, but keeps his eyes on Bitty. “You – you see the ice, and you’ve got the some of the softest hands I’ve ever watched. You’re fast, you can run the puck well. Shitty said –” there’s a soft noise from the man in question when Jack says his name, but Jack doesn’t look over – “that you couldn’t take a check, and now look at you. You’re so good, Bits. There could be people who want to check you out.”

Bitty stares at him. When he blinks, it comes slow and slightly dazed.

“You’re makin’ me blush, Jack.” His cheeks and nose have indeed flushed and darkened. He shakes his head a little. “That’s – Thank you. I mean, it’s not – I don’t want… No. What are we doing? This isn’t what we’re talking about right now.”

He lays a hand on Jack’s chest, just briefly, a sort of placating-yet-grateful pat. The look that accompanies the action is meaningful, but also short; he turns back to his friends decisively. Jack still wants to put his arm on Bitty’s shoulders.

 

“He’s just saying that because we’re dating. He’s my boyfriend.”

There’s a silence that stretches for beats enough that Jack starts to count them. He gets to four, and finally slides his arm around Bitty to tug him into his side. The movement seems to break a dam; Ransom makes his strangled sound for a third time, before clearing his throat.

“Fuck, I need pie. Can I eat that yet?”

 


	17. Chapter 17

 

Chowder’s prediction had been exactly right: the boys do all ‘shit’, in various ways.

 

With the pie cooled and slices dished out, the group divides off into huddles. Jack finds himself confronted by Shitty, Chowder, and Lardo, while Bitty is somehow tugged from his grasp by Holster. Ransom seems more interested in his pie, though the furtive looks he sends Jack with every bite don’t go unmissed.

 

“I’m not saying I knew, but. Not for nothing on the secrecy side, y’know, but Bitty’s midnight Skype sessions were getting a bit audible.”

Lardo speaks with an impressively dry intonation, and although she doesn’t seem to be suggesting she has heard anything incriminating, Jack’s collar still feels uncomfortably tight.

“Oh,” he says.

“Not in like, a bad way, dude. In like, a ‘wow that’s so fucking cute and I’m very alone’ kind of way.”

“Oh,” Jack says again. The skin under his collar persists in its warming, but maybe for a different reason. Lardo smiles at him, mutters something that sounds like “s’wawesome,” and directs her attention to her pie. It’s an easy exchange.

 

“Well, I feel fuckin’ blindsided. Even after – uh.” Shitty squints at Jack, an evaluative expression. “Have you gotten a letter…?” He trails off suggestively with a sideways glance to Chowder. Jack doesn’t trust himself to do more than nod. “Yikes. I’m sorry, man. I didn’t think… I mean, it was fuckin’ horse hockey regardless of whether it was, you know, _accurate_ or not – shit. I mean, I just assumed he was just being a generic douchebag, not that it was like, targeted. Which,” he hoots a laugh that Jack startles at a little, fixing Shitty with his own evaluative squint, “is the irony of it all, huh? The reason why the brass gets written apologies for this brand of homophoby dickcheese is exactly to, like, make it less hard for actual queer-identifying blokes in the league.”

Despite a slight niggling feeling that he’s having insidious hockey homophobia explained to him, Jack gets a thrum of satisfaction over the support. He claps a hand on Shitty’s shoulder, and jostles him with a smile.

 

“The Falcs know. I mean, they know when it’s about me, it – uh. It’s targeted.”

Chowder whistles lowly. Lardo hums at her pie, while Shitty’s eyes turn comically round.

“Damn, Zimmermann. That’s pioneering, right there. Like, first out League hockey player.”

Still smiling, Jack shakes his head.

“I doubt it. I mean, there’s got to be other guys. It’s a hundred years, eh? There’s got to be at least one other guy that whole time. Maybe two.”

There’s a beat before the joke lands, Lardo being the first one to snort a laugh.

 

“It’s so great your team knows,” Chowder supplies, bright yet serious in a way that Jack finds comforting. “And Fitz. He hasn’t been down here in a long time – he’s busy, obviously – but it’ll be nice for Bitty, right? To have a friend in Providence?”

Jack tries to ignore the frown that Shitty makes at him, again playing safe by nodding.

“Who’s Fitz?” Lardo puts in, somehow drier, a touch biting. “Kind of rings a bell, but I don’t know if I can place a face.”

“He doesn’t get back here much, eh?”

Jack’s tone is purposefully mild. A friendly inquiry. Nothing behind it, which he emphasizes by taking a giant bite of his pie.

 

From the way Shitty scoffs, it’s not as innocent a question as Jack intended.

“Outside of yelling at him for being drunk off his ass, and yelling at him for being a bigoted dropkick, I haven’t talked to the guy since… what, October? We used to be bathroom buddies, man. I lived next to him for three G.D. years.”

“You yelled at Fitz?”

Chowder sounds confused. Lardo is also peering at Shitty quizzically. The extent of Lukas’ problems, then, haven’t spread through the group, tight-knit as they are.

“Man, he missed that game at the start of the season so he could go to a bar. And he called –” Shitty cuts himself off, sending another faltering glance in Jack’s direction. Jack keeps his face impassive. “He got in trouble for saying some offensive shit around his teammates. I had to help him apologize for it.”

Lardo scoffs something that could be the word “Typical,” and goes back to eating her pie. Chowder, for his part, seems a little shell-shocked.

 

“Bitty said he knows about you guys. That’s good, right? He’s friends with Bitty, and he’s – I mean, you’ve got an A, but still.”

“What’re you gabbin’ about over here?”

Bitty slots himself back into Jack’s side, apparently done with his hushed conversation with Holster. Holster has come out of it with a relaxed-looking face; he tips his chin at Jack in a way that seems, weirdly, like approval. What Holster misses, though, is the exchange being watched by Ransom, standing still and silent with his clean pie plate.

“Bitty, when did you last talk to Fitz?”

Chowder is sounding some combination of annoyed and distressed, giving Bitty a sort of pleading look along with his question.

 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Bitty starts airily, but does wrap his arm around Jack’s waist. “Maybe a few months ago. And even before then, it wasn’t that much. What about you?”

“September, maybe? That game we went to, probably. I just thought it was, you know, because we were the Frogs and he didn’t know us so well.”

“Come on, Chowder. Call a dick a dick. He’s just realized that now he’s in the NHL, he’s too big-time for us lowly Wellies.”

Shitty punctuates it with a ruffle to Chowder’s hair, rendered ridiculous by the fact Chowder is taller than him.

“Amen,” Holster intones.

 

“He’s been having a hard time of it, but he’s doubling down lately.”

Jack hears his own press voice, the diplomatic and monotonous soundbite that reveals nothing, yet promises everything. Every head in the room swivels to stare at him, including Bitty’s. Jack attempts to infuse an apology into the squeeze he gives.

“I mean, just from a… hockey perspective. He’s focussed up.” It’s a lame cover. It sounds lame.

“And good for him. We’re all happy for him, man. But it’s telling, that’s all I’m saying. You only find out what kind of guy someone is after all their dreams come true.” Shitty gives Jack a momentary speculative frown, before grinning and punching him on the arm. “But you’d know all about that now, huh? Even if it does come at the cost of my own enduring happiness. Here’s me, tragically heterosexual, and the only man with a hope of turning me is snatched from under my nose.” He turns a simpering look on Bitty, who snorts loudly and inelegantly.

“Stop that,” he chastises, and then to Jack says, “He’s joking.”

 

Shitty makes an injured noise.

“I kept your bed warm for a whole year, and this is how you thank me? Pass me over for a walking space heater.”

“I never asked you to do that!” Bitty protests, but it’s through a laugh. Although Jack is just on the outside of all this, is lacking the years of comradery and closeness within this group, he still finds himself laughing along. In front of these people, he can press a kiss to Bitty’s temple, and rest his chin on Bitty’s head as he encircles him from behind. He can listen quietly to the quips and banter that passes between them all, and feel Bitty laughing against his chest. He can see Bitty relaxed, and open, and easy. He can see Bitty around the people he loves, and bask in the happiness radiating from him.

 

The pie is gone, and Jack’s offers to do the dishes get shouted down immediately. Bitty disappears upstairs to get his wallet and keys, promising a comprehensive tour of campus and the best coffee Jack’s had in his life. Hovering in the entryway, Jack is a prime target for ambush.

 

“So I heard you play hockey or something.”

They’re the first words that Ransom speaks to him, and they’re slightly sneering. Jack tries for politeness.

“Hey, man.” He offers his hand. “We didn’t meet before. Ransom, right?”

“Justin Oluransi.” It’s pointed. “He was crying a lot, you know. Tired at practice, missing assignments. Like, more than usual. There was sadness in his food.”

It’s a strange thing to say, but Jack believes him. He attempts reassurance.

“That was before we got together. He was… having a hard time. I tried to be his friend.”

“Having a hard time like Fitz was having a hard time?”

Jack can’t help the frown he makes.

“I think you should talk to Bitty about this.”

The shake of Ransom’s head is fierce, and he steps towards Jack with his own grave expression.

“No, you don’t get it. He’d come in my room, and he’d say he didn’t need anything, but he’d just sit there silently for hours while I studied. He told me once he couldn’t talk about it to anyone – no one,” he emphasizes. “I tried to get him to go to a counsellor, and he wasn’t having any of it. And then, out of the blue, he’s tweeting about his ‘significant other’ and says on his vlog that he’s dating someone. Doesn’t say who, but it was like a fucking switch flipped overnight.”

“Bitty has a vlog?”

Ransom gives him a bewildered look, and for a second Jack interprets it as surprise that he doesn’t know about Bitty’s internet presence, but then he shakes his head again.

“I’m the only one who knows about it. He gave me the URL and swore me to secrecy, and that was only after I bugged him about it for like a million years.”

 

Jack’s brain feels as though it’s trying to make sense of a painting viewed too close. He casts what feels like a desperate glance to the stairs, hoping Bitty will be coming down to save him. He’s nowhere to be seen. Jack looks back to Ransom.

“I don’t really understand why you’re telling me this. Not the vlog,” he adds when Ransom opens his mouth, waving a dismissive hand, “I mean, I knew he was… I tried to help him.”

“I just think it’s convenient timing. He’s vulnerable, he gets a boyfriend, he’s happy.”

“That’s not what happened,” Jack hedges, only speaking slowly because he has the sense of being accused of something but still isn’t clear about what it is.

“You know he’s never had a boyfriend before you? And now here you are, like he got a freaking Ferrari for his sixteenth birthday.”

Jack is aware his stare is becoming a glare. He can appreciate Ransom’s concern – is grateful for it, in some sense. It should be comforting to realize that Bitty has such fierce support in his corner. He can’t help his defensiveness, though.

“You think I’m taking advantage of his innocence?” Jack’s sarcasm comes through broad and flat. Press voice. “He’s an adult, but sure. And also, if you think that I’m his first boyfr–”

“ _Woah_ , hey. Boys. What’s happening here?”

Bitty has re-appeared from his room with a changed shirt and a peaked cap in hand, and is looking between Jack and Ransom with stunned eyes and a significantly downturned mouth. Jack feels the immediate and bitter swell of contrition.

 

“Bits. It’s my fault, I was…”

Jack doesn’t know how to finish the apology. He fixes Bitty with imploring eyes instead, willing him to understand all the things that Jack wants to say to smooth it all over – not just to Bitty, but to Ransom as well. Bitty’s gaze flicks to Ransom, and his brows quirk with something like comprehension.

“Justin Oluransi, you had better not be giving my man the shovel talk like I’m some sheltered white-dress-wearing child with pigtails and a dowry.”

Ransom sputters slightly.

“I wasn’t. That’s not – Bitty. I’m just… regular hockey guys aren’t like Samwell hockey guys.”

“I know they’re not.” Bitty folds his arms.

“Alright, my bad. I should’ve talked to you first. But, Bitty. I’m just trying to… I can’t get my head around what’s happening here. You haven’t told us anything.” He sounds accusing now, and Jack feels his remorse building. Bitty, too, seems to defrost slightly before his eyes. He approaches them, and holds out the cap for Jack to take.

 

“I’m sorry I’ve been so secretive, but it’s not only mine to tell. I’ll explain to you,” he promises, laying a hand on Ransom’s arm, gentle and friendly, “as much as I can. But you’ll have to wait until we get back. _Someone_ wants to go gawk at Faber, even at risk of getting spotted walking across River Quad. We’re going incognito,” he adds wryly to Jack, tapping the hat dangling from his hands, and Jack grins as he pulls it low on his head.

“Best disguise there is, Bits.”

 

* * *

 

 

Faber is beautiful. Jack enjoys how the ice, freshly surfaced, lights up mirrored and impenetrable under the sun from the cathedral-like windows. Jack has always felt reverent about hockey rinks, but this one is truly a place of worship. Bitty is touched by the sun as well, turning his hair golden and his skin glowing, making all of him warm to Jack’s touch.

 

That sun pulls low over the river as they amble back, streetlamps fading in and daylight fading out. With Bitty’s hand nestled in the bend of Jack’s arm, it’s with an unspoken agreement that they move not in the direction of the Haus, but towards the off-campus hotel where Jack is staying.

 

There is a painting on the wall above the bed, or a print of a painting, of a haystack. Stripped to his underwear, Bitty stares at it with his hands on his hips.

“D’you ever think about, like… what else you could be doing? As in, what jobs you could do.”

Jack casts him a look from where he is preparing coffee, also only wearing his boxer-briefs. It had started as a joke, because Jack hadn’t brought any lounging clothes with him, and Bitty couldn’t be bothered with going to the Haus to get some, but now Jack is relishing it a little. It feels comfortable, and unaffected.

“You going to become an artist?”

Bitty scoffs.

“Ugh, no. I’ve seen what the art life does to Lardo; I lack the constitution. No, I’m just thinking I could design a better hotel room than this.”

“I think _I_ could design a better hotel room than this,” Jack remarks dryly. Bitty laughs, which is what he’d been hoping for. “But I’m sure you could, Bits. If that’s what you wanted to do.”

Bitty rolls his eyes and turns to flop backwards onto the bed. Jack goes back to stirring the coffees, and when he collects the mugs in his hands and goes to hand Bitty his, Bitty is leaning up against the headboard, knees bent loosely in front of him. Jack crosses over, and sets the mug on the bedside table.

 

“You think I can do anything, apparently.”

Jack can’t dispute the accusation. His own mug close to spilling, he manoeuvres himself next to Bitty careful as he can. Settled, he takes a sip.

“I think you can do whatever you want,” he murmurs.

“Careful. I might take that as a free license.” Bitty emphasizes it with a distinctly lewd look at Jack’s crotch, and Jack grins. “Truth is, I don’t know what I want.”

“Are we still talking about careers? Or –?” Jack indicates his dick as subtly as he can, using his coffee mug. Bitty wrinkles his nose through a smile.

“No, not yet. Stop distracting me,” he chastises, though there’s no heat behind it. “You said I could get scouted. And honestly, I hadn’t thought about it until right when the words left your mouth.”

“I was being serious.”

“I know you were.” Bitty lays a hand over Jack’s thigh, pressing slightly into the muscle. “And isn’t that the most amazing thing?”

“I don’t get what you mean,” Jack says, plain as he can, still holding his cup between his palms.

 

“I know I’m not talking sense. I just – makin’ plans has never been my strong suit. Mostly because I could never be sure if… well, there’re just no guarantees. I can hope, but hoping’s never got me that far before.”

Jack leans away briefly, only so he can set his coffee down on his own side table, but when he leans back in he makes a point of mirroring Bitty’s grip on this thigh.

“I wasn’t supposed to be able to have all these things. These friends, and this team, and… and, you. I definitely wasn’t supposed to have you.”

Jack’s knee-jerk reaction is to protest, but stronger is the swelling familiarity of it all. He nods, and rubs at Bitty’s leg, and can only say, “Me too.”

 

Bitty looks at him, and Jack can see how the rings around his irises are so deep, they’re almost black. The glint of light in the brown, though, is warm.

“I don’t know what I want to do, after college,” Bitty says simply. Not a confession, or a sheepish admittance, just a statement of fact. “I just know it probably won’t be hockey, as much as I love it. It’s just not what I want for myself. This, on the other hand – you. Us.” He swallows, and Jack can’t look away from his eyes. “Well, I think I might just want you for forever.”

“I love you,” Jack replies.

 

Bitty becomes unmoving. He might not even have heard it for all he reacts. Then, he says, “You do.” Nothing else, just a bald confirmation. “You do,” he repeats, uptick of surprise tingeing it this time.

“Yes. I’m in love with you.”

It might be funny, later, how serious they’re being, how they’re talking without emotion and with bland statements of facts. But that’s what they are, to Jack at least: clear facts, devoid of interpretation.

“It’s like with hockey,” he tries to explain, and Bitty nods. “I knew, early. And this is early. But it’s the same. I love you.” He wants to keep saying it. Bitty nods again. When he starts to speak, it’s as though the statement had been his own – as though he’s following on from having said it himself, adding his own explanation to the air between them.

 

“I don’t know when I realized. When I showed you how to bake a pie, maybe. Or the first time I said something right in French. Or maybe, if I’m being really honest, it was when you helped me make those spinach puffs. That was the start of it, at least. I didn’t stand a chance against loving you.”

 

It is Bitty who pulls Jack in, both hands fit sweet and strong around Jack’s jaw, kissing in that gentle and sure way he does. He sinks lower on the bed, guiding Jack down and over him, and Jack allows his weight to settle and feel the lines of Bitty pressing up against him.

 

Is isn’t the first time, with Bitty having been back and forth from Jack’s apartment and hours spent alone and entwined, and countless conversations, but it is a new time. Just like with all the other new times, Jack feels the differences. He feels the slowness and the care, feels Bitty canting up to him. Bitty pulls unheard sounds from Jack with his mouth, and Jack plays his body in return to hear his breaths coming loud and wanton.

 

It is when their underwear is discarded and Jack’s hand is wrapped around both their dicks, Bitty clawing at his back and mouthing at his neck, that Jack hears it: “I love you,” Bitty moans out, and Jack kisses his hair.

 


	18. Chapter 18

 

“I was starting to think you were going to keep me dangling forever.”

It could be a joke, but Dr. Casinader delivers it with such ringing disappointment that Jack feels himself shrinking slightly into the vinyl-covered couch cushions. They squeak, as they always do, under his movements.

“I didn’t mean to, uh… I know I said, last appointment, that I didn’t think I needed to see you anymore. But that’s not what I was trying to do.”

“A formal severance is more customary. But you know that.”

She is wearing her glasses today, not her contacts, and Jack considers that it may be for the sole purpose of viewing him disapprovingly over the frames. She pairs the look with an impatient tap of her nails on the edge of her iPad.

“I’m using my strategies,” he defends. It sounds childish.

 

“I’m always willing to see you, if you need it. But consistency is the most important thing. None of what we do in here matters if it doesn’t fit into your routine.” She uses the edge of her knuckle to push the glasses up her nose, and her own posture relaxes into her chair. “Which you also know.” If the mild sarcasm in her voice is any indication, Jack’s reprimand is over. “Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

 

He licks his lips, mulling over the point at which to begin.

“I’ve been thinking,” he starts, “about categories. And I don’t think you’re right, that they’re unhelpful always.” She purses her lips, but makes no move to interrupt him. “I need them. It’s like, public and private, right? And it’s not about making assumptions about people, or limit… limiting myself in some way. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m… I mean, considering whether someone is safe.”

“Are there people you feel unsafe around?”

She isn’t making notes yet, but Jack sees her fingers hovering.

 

“It’s not… Not that, exactly. Let me try again.” He leans forward, settling elbows on knees and expression into a frown. He reaches to the glass of water the doctor had poured for him, and drinks down half of it before he makes his second attempt to explain himself.

 

“I told you about Bittle. Eric – everyone calls him Bitty. He’s… I told you he was in a relationship. They broke up, and now we’re.” He shrugs his shoulder, and Dr. Casinader nods.

“That’s a big change.”

“That’s the easy part. He’s like – the way I feel about him, that’s… it’s huge, eh? It’s bigger than anything. And I just want to tell everyone.”

“Okay.” She says it like it’s obvious. Jack laughs, but it’s short and sharp.

“Yeah, sure.” He rubs his hands over his thighs, and the fabric of his jeans is smooth with wear. “This isn’t… I’m not ashamed. I’m not scared, any more. But those reasons – they don’t go away. We could ignore them, and just go, ‘fuck it,’ and pretend like there wouldn’t be… fallout, or consequences. But it’s just not going to happen that way.”

“Acting in your own interests isn’t necessarily ignoring potential consequences.”

She’s using her measured and fair voice, the one she employs when she is being deliberately leading. Jack allows himself to be led.

“There is a middle ground, though. And that’s what you want from me. You weren’t ever – you didn’t want me just acting on every impulse I had. I get that. It’s about… figuring out how I can have the things that I want.”

She nods, and her passing smile is distinctly pleased. Jack takes it as a cue to continue.

 

“The way to do that is with a plan. That’s why I need to compartmentalize – why we’re doing it in stages. We told his friends, and I’m telling my parents, and the team, and that’s how… We’re controlling it. It’s not just about me.”

Dr. Casinader taps out something, brief and efficient, and looks back to him with a plain expression.

“Good. That’s smart. You’re minimizing stressors.”

“It’s making me… like, I used to be anxious about people finding out. Now I’m anxious that people _don’t_ know. Does that make sense?”

“Where do you think that’s coming from?”

 

Jack regards her – her slightly-harried knot of hair, her round and youthful face, her thin-framed glasses. He has known her a long time, and what he expects out of her has changed dramatically since he met her for the first time.

“I’m happy,” he says, “and I want to be able to tell everyone all the reasons why.”

 

She makes a noise of agreement and approval, adds another comment to her notes, and Jack keeps talking.

 

* * *

 

 

It feels serendipitous: Jack sets down the container of mini jam tarts which Bitty had told him to give to the team, and his phone rings. He ignores Tater’s demanding, “These for everyone, or you selfish?” in lieu of answering it. Tater can wait.

 

“Hi. I’m just about to eat one of the tarts.”

“Oh, you – you’re at work. I can call back. Or, can you talk? If you’re eatin’ tarts, I guess you’re not busy.”

Bitty speaks at a rush, excitement thrumming around his words. Jack can hear his urgency, the thrill of his eagerness twitching a grin to Jack’s face.

“No, I can –”

He barely gets it out before Bitty cuts over him.

“I got the C. They voted for me – they _all_ voted for me, it was unanimous. I’m going to be Captain next year.”

“Bits!” Jack yells it, filling the nook with the exclamation and pulling all eyes to him, but he doesn’t care. “I – shit, that’s amazing! You’re – unanimous, oh my god. Of course. I’m so proud of you.”

He’s babbling, he knows, and Bitty is cooing in his ear, and Jack feels the expanse of happiness swelling inside him. He says again, “I’m so proud of you,” and makes eye contact with Marty, who is watching him with a confused smile of his own.

 

All Jack’s teammates are watching – his friends, happy that he is happy, even though they don’t know the reason.

“Bits, hang on a second –” and it’s a moment as good as any, the kind of moment Jack couldn’t plan better, especially coming before round three when it won’t disrupt anything, so he raises his voice again for the whole room to hear – “My boyfriend just found out he’s Captain of his team!”

A silence does stutter out briefly, but Thirdy is the one to break it with some broad words of approval. The sentiment ripples through the room, “Congrats” and “Nice work” being called over from all corners, and Jack smiles back. He casts Tater a significant look as he points to the box of tarts, and feels secure in excusing himself from the room.

 

“Honey, did you just do that?” comes through a little breathless, edged in laughter, and largely disbelieving. “I thought you were going to do it over dinner or something.”

“I couldn’t miss the opportunity. Fuck, Bits, I wish I could be hugging you right now.”

“I didn’t know what to do. I cried up at the podium, in front of everyone – the coaches and everything. Our new manager was there; she probably thinks I’m a crazy person now. Hell of an impression to make as the new team leader.”

“I don’t blame you. I kind of want to cry right now.” Bitty clicks his tongue, but Jack powers through. “Bits, I knew you could. I know I’ve only watched your tape, and I haven’t – but I’ve seen you, with your team. And I know you. And you’re so caring, and supportive, and you know exactly what you’re doing. The way you talk about them, you just know _them_. You’re so invested in them growing, and you – you’re so strong. I just knew you could do it. I knew it.”

“Jack,” Bitty sniffs, voice detectably damp, “you’re makin’ me cry again.”

“Bud. Bits, I love you so much. God, I just want to come down there and hug you. I won’t,” he promises, because Bitty is already laughingly protesting, “but I’m not going to let you go next time I see you.”

“Is that a guarantee?”

“Absolutely.”

 

It’s still a few minutes before they hang up, and even then only because Bitty is called away to celebratory fro-yo by a yelling Ransom and Holster. Something about the way they both shout, “Hey, Jack” down Bitty’s phone sets him at ease.

 

On returning to the nook, there is an empty place with a single tart sitting in front of it, at a table filled with Tater, Marty, Thirdy, Snowy, and – to Jack’s uncertainty – Lukas. The empty tart box sits in the centre.

“I’m impressed by your self-restraint,” Jack comments broadly, taking his seat and pointedly picking up the tart. The crust is flaky, and the jam is full and plummy, leaving a winey taste in Jack’s mouth. He thumbs some crumbs from his lips, and waits. Tater is the first to get stuck in to him.

“Why you telling lies, Zimmboni? No need to invent boyfriend. We only chirp a little for being old, grumpy man.”

“He made that tart you’re still wearing half of, so he’s definitely not made-up.” Jack points to the fresh dribble of jam on Tater’s t-shirt, deep purple and still-juicy. Tater just laughs, and lifts the fabric to his mouth to lick at the stain.

“Gross, Tater,” Third remarks, but Tater waves him off.

 

Ignoring them, Marty starts with his own question.

“He’s on a hockey team?”

“NCAA. Samwell University.” Jack doesn’t look at Lukas. He truthfully doesn’t think on it until the words are out of his mouth, but then he can’t pull them back, and someone is sure to make the connection. That someone is Snowy.

“Nice. Div One, yeah? Poots, wasn’t that your team?”

Jack can’t avoid looking at him now. He tries to inject his apology into his expression, to assure Lukas that they’ll talk about it later and that Jack won’t implicate him any further. Lukas spares him a passing glance, then turns back to Snowy. He clears his throat.

“Yeah. Uh, Bittle – Bitty’s a friend of mine.”

Jack covers his shock by shoving the rest of his tart into his mouth. Tater crows another laugh.

“He came to game! I remember; you hug him,” Tater throws at Jack accusingly. “Small and blond, yes?”

 

Before Jack can confirm the allegation, Third is making sounds of recognition as well.

“Right, yeah, I remember that kid too. Mostly because I couldn’t believe my eyes at Jack Zimmermann smiling when the rink wasn’t in sight.”

Jack takes the chirps with a laugh, stealing a cautious look to Lukas, who is surprisingly sporting a tentative smile of his own. It turns to something reassuring as he catches Jack’s eye. Jack allows himself to grin a little wider, and laugh a little louder.

 

* * *

 

 

“Jack.”

 

He’s almost at his car, legs feeling leaded and all of him more than ready for a good nights’ sleep (two more to go, then four more wins, then –), but he still turns around when Lukas calls his name. After the tarts and revelations in the nook, Jack had lost track of him. There hadn’t been a moment alone to catch up and apologize, to reassure him that anything Jack says about Bitty in future will never broach Lukas again. As tired as Jack is, there is mild relief in Lukas tracking him down himself.

 

“You headed home?”

“I’m not in a rush,” Jack urges, standing casually and attempting to project an air of no agenda. “Do you want to…?”

“I got a lift from Snowy. I – Do you mind if we go somewhere? I’ll buy you a coffee. Decaf,” he adds, a chuckling afterthought, and Jack is struck by how easy his tone is.

“Sure. Yeah – come on.”

 

Jack drives in silence, and Lukas doesn’t make any attempt to talk to him yet, beyond directing him to a late-night diner.

“I feel like a tuna melt. Do you mind?”

It’s the second time he’s asked Jack for permission, and it’s setting Jack’s teeth off-kilter. He orders his own sandwich, B.L.T., even though he isn’t hungry. They get coffee, and Lukas stirs a near fistful of sugar packets into his own cup.

 

“I want you to know I’m still not going to tell anyone. Just because I’m talking about Bitty – Bitty and I – now, I’m not going to say anything about you. I’m sorry, about before. I wasn’t thinking when I brought up Samwell; just still excited for him, I guess.”

“He really got the C?”

Jack feels a flicker of doubt along with his pride, but can’t stop the small smile that curls around his mouth.

“Yeah. He said it was unanimous.”

Lukas whistles lowly, still stirring his coffee.

“That’s – Good for him.” He purses his lips for a moment, and meets Jack’s gaze. “I’m surprised. Which I guess is like – I mean, you weren’t. I heard you, on the phone.”

“I knew he’d get it.” Jack tries, against might, to keep the seeping admiration from his voice. From Lukas’ tiny smirk, he doesn’t succeed.

 

It’s quiet between them for a moment. Their food hasn’t arrived yet, so Jack only has his drink to occupy himself. It’s still too hot when he takes a sip. When Lukas speaks again, it’s directed at the table.

 

“I’m going to tell Shitty. Not the whole thing, probably. But I’m gonna – y’know. Come out. To him.”

Jack blows on the coffee before he sips this time, but still blisters his mouth. He doesn’t trust himself to talk yet, and besides – he gets the sense that Lukas isn’t finished, from the way he reflexively licks his lips.

“And if I make it through trades, I’ll… I’m going to talk to George as well. And I was wondering if… i-if you’d. Um. Come with me.”

He trails off to barely nothing, still talking to the laminate tabletop and its sticky-shiny marks. Jack has to swig from his coffee again, and cough a little, because his throat suddenly feels parched.

“Yeah,” he manages eventually. “For sure. If you want that.”

“I… I’d appreciate it.”

There’s a weird formality in it, but also the familiar gratitude that used to make Jack taste guilt all over his tongue. Now, though, it brings a muted flare of gratification to Jack’s chest.

“I’m proud of you,” Jack tells him. It’s honest. There is strangeness in it, because the feeling doesn’t reach what he experienced for Bitty that afternoon, but it is still keen.

 

Lukas blinks up to looking back at him.

“I should’ve done it when you first told me to.”

Jack is shaking his head before Lukas finishes the statement.

“No, it wasn’t right. I shouldn’t have – it’s different. It’s not about coming out. I’m happy for you because…” He mulls it over for a moment, tapping blunt nails on the table and trying to sort through the words. Lukas, who doesn’t know that Jack sometimes needs this time, this reflection, suggests flatly, “Because I’m being who I am?”

Even though it’s an interruption to his thoughts, Jack laughs.

“No. That’s… no. It’s because.” He presses his lips together a moment, and takes a breath. “Because you’re asking for help. For support.”

Lukas seems momentarily stunned. He shakes his head, slow and dazed. It gets Jack frowning.

“What?”

“You just come out with that shit. Like, Yoda. Hockey Yoda.”

Jack snickers. “It’s years of therapy.”

 

Their food gets set in front of them, and Jack thanks the waiter. Across the top of their two sandwiches, Lukas smiles at him.

 


	19. Chapter 19

 

> 00:49  
>  Hi Jack, sorry to text like this but I wanted to apologize for what I said at the Haus. I’ve talked to Bitty and I know I overstepped now. You do seem like a good dude and Bitty is happy. Congrats on tonight, that shot was clutch. I got your number off Holster but I can delete it if you want.

 

> 00:52  
>  Oh it’s Justin btw

 

> 00:53  
>  Ransom sorry only my mom and aunties call me Justin

 

It’s barely morning and Jack is still bleary, vaguely game-tired but mostly just struggling to shake off his sleep. He has a routine, though: a run, and breakfast, then the rink. Without any food in his system, he’s having a hard time dealing with the volume of relief he’s getting from Ransom’s messages.

 

Next to him in the bed, Bitty is little more than a lump in the blankets and a tuft of hair on the pillow. He does snore, kind of, in a snuffling kind of way, more sighs in his sleep than grunts. Jack knows the perils of waking him earlier than he wants – the most he risks in this moment is carding his fingers through the exposed blond, patting at what he assumes to be Bitty’s shoulder above the covers, and easing himself from the bed as delicately as possible.

 

Jack makes quick work of dressing, and runs water in the sink as cold as it will go, to splash on his face. He sneaks from the room with as little noise as he dares, but isn’t able to pay Ransom the same courtesy; leaving a reply to later, he’d probably forget.

 

> 05:57  
>  Thanks Ransom. I’m glad you’ve got his back.

 

The riverside is not far, and soon Jack is running down the Walk with breath coming frosty and the crystals of the cold settling in his lungs. He runs to Bitty’s baking music; Bitty had pointed out, with a thorough physical demonstration, that the beats work well for cardio. Jack keeps it loud enough, and the morning is early enough, that there is nothing in his ears but the throb of that beat.

 

Every morning of playoffs comes with the same feeling: of hurtling to an edge, but getting no closer, readying for a jump that might never come. Jack is thirsty – parched – and he can almost taste the rush of making it to the precipice. His stomach is in a constant state of suspension, anticipating the leap. He can’t be calm, and he can’t stop the nerves, but he can stick to his routine. A run, and breakfast, then the rink.

 

With Bitty’s classes done and his friends all graduated and moved out for the Summer, Bitty is floating around Jack’s apartment more often than not.

“I want to give the Haus a proper deep clean before I go,” he claims as reasoning for sticking around up north, but he goes easily when Jack suggests he stay another night and not take the train back to Samwell just yet.

 

 _Tomorrow_ is an easy refrain. Take tomorrow as it comes; tomorrow is just another game; we’ll make Summer plans tomorrow. _Could_ is also a kind of comfort. Jack could be playing through another few weeks. They could be celebrating a Cup. Bitty could just stay.

 

Anxiety lives in the shadows of predictions, and Jack uses rote phrases to talk himself back down. Bitty tells him, “Nothing is ‘one and done,’” and Jack adds that to his internal list. There is no mantra in existence, though, to stop him from feeling selfish for wanting Bitty with him at every game and then every day of June, and July, and August, and after.

 

Sweat seems to hover in the space between the wicking fabric of Jack’s shirt, and his skin. It isn’t sticky, and it doesn’t want to dry, and neither does it trickle. He pushes the wetness from his forehead into his hair – shorter, for the playoffs, and something he’ll probably keep because on seeing the cut for the first time, Bitty had turned pink in the face and touched him gently around the ears and said, “It’s lovely.”

 

His beard catches the sweat too, perspiration feeling prickly on the skin beneath the scruff. When he kisses Bitty with it, he leaves behind patches of red, not just around his mouth but down his chest and on the insides of his thighs where the flesh is tender. These marks flare, and fade, and then Jack makes them again.

 

Jack runs until his chest is heaving, jaw aching from the cold, morning chill leaving his wet skin too hot and too frigid at the same time. He’s still panting when he makes it back to his bedroom, finding Bitty cross-legged on the bed in his underwear, picking at a bowl of cereal and scrolling through his phone. Bitty sees him, sets both those things aside, and says, “Come here.”

“I’m disgusting.” There’s still a wheeze there.

 

Bitty rises to his knees, holds out his hand, and says again, “Come here.” Jack goes, with a roll of his eyes.

 

Bitty’s hands go to Jack’s spine, where his shirt is clinging and more than damp, and his lips go to Jack’s mouth. He pulls away after the first kiss, and licks Jack’s sweat from his own lips. Jack wants to climb on top of him, and see what else he licks.

“You should come running with me. I know you like running.”

“I like sleeping. And I like being on vacation. And I like –”

What Bitty seems to like is the moist pull of Jack’s shorts around his thighs and ass, and even more so tugging those shorts down, kneading into the bulk with his strong fingers, and lowering himself belly-down on the bed to nuzzle into the cut of Jack’s hipbones.

“Bits, let me shower first.”

“I never congratulated you for last night.”

“You don’t need to congratulate me, come on – I fucking reek. Bits.”

Bitty sighs against Jack’s skin, but does sit back on his haunches. Jack steps out of his shorts  entirely on the way to the bathroom, and somehow isn’t surprised when he hears the tell-tale rustle of Bitty sliding off the bed to follow him.

 

“I want to be able to do this every day,” Bitty says into Jack’s shoulder blade, having wrapped himself around Jack from behind, preventing him from stepping under the spray of the shower. He reaches past Jack’s hip, encircling his soft cock in a rough palm, and tugs with too much restraint. Jack doesn’t feel the same compunction about Bitty’s hand as his mouth on Jack’s sweat-tacky dick; he lets himself groan, pulls Bitty’s other arm to wrap around his chest, and focusses on Bitty’s hot breaths landing on the knot of bone at the base of his neck.

 

* * *

 

 

Bitty goes for his runs during the hours Jack is at practice. Jack knows this, because he receives a daily smiling selfie, each from a different part of the eight-mile-radius around his apartment. Some of these don’t include Bitty’s face at all, rather focussed on his ankles from above, or his knees as he stretches out on some patch of grass, or his shoulder showing the slight difference in colour between what was under his shirt, and what was touched by the strengthening Springtime sun.

 

He seems to be using his vacation time to work his way through every recipe in American baking history, and Jack comes home from the rink or wakes from afternoon naps to an apartment smelling of the earthiness of toasted flour, and the tang of roasted fruit. It feels like months, and it’s only two weeks.

 

Jack listens, half-asleep, to conversations Bitty has with his mother on the phone. He hears, “I don’t know how much longer I need up here,” and “I’ll let you know as soon as I do.” He hears how Bitty kneads his dough a little harder each time he hangs up.

“You can tell her you’re staying for the finals. It’s alright.” Jack leans onto the kitchen bar from the living room, watching Bitty fuss over the shape of his loaf at the opposite counter. Over his shoulder, Bitty spares him a skeptical look.

 

“I absolutely could not. Firstly, she hasn’t met you. It would be bad enough if I were imposin’ on some friend of mine who she’s made acquaintance with; you’re as good as a stranger.”

“Do you regularly proposition strangers while wearing their jerseys and brandishing home-made ganache?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” It comes with a side-eyed glance, before Bitty delicately lifts a knife from the block and makes three quick cuts in the surface of the dough. It gets deposited into the humming oven as Jack laughs through asking, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

A wet cloth is swept over the bench, and Bitty dries his hands on a tea towel through turning back to Jack with a distantly tired expression.

“I can’t tell her the truth just yet. Not until… not until you’ve met her, and Coach, and they know more what kind of people you are. It’s just the way it’s got to be done, or she’ll kill me with the force of her disappointment.” He tosses the cloth to the counter, and folds his arms while affecting a shudder. “I can just about hear her in my ear: _Dicky, I thought I raised a boy who knew how and when to mind himself._ ”

“Dicky?”

Jack doesn’t quite mean to tease, but it happens anyway. Bitty is unimpressed.

“Shush, you. I mean to say, gettin’ her to understand that it’s okay for me to be here, and you’re not put out any – that would be hard enough.” He swallows thickly, and looks away from Jack for a moment, leaning his hips heavily against the counter. “I talk about everything with her, but there’s so much that can’t be said. I’ve tried to come out more times than I can count, and I just chicken out, ev—” he takes a deep breath, and Jack tries to ignore that it sounds wet – “every fucking time. I get so close, and then the words just don’t happen. Only time in my life I’ve ever been speechless; when I need to speak the most.”

He rolls his eyes roughly, tutting at himself with derision, but Jack can see the beginnings of wetness in them. He reaches across the bar, snagging fingers into Bitty’s shirt. Bitty’s folded arms drop immediately, both hands clasping at Jack’s offered one.

 

“I don’t know if I’m more scared that she’ll be hurt that I lied, or that she won’t approve.” Jack hums in response, reaching out with his free hand to join their fold. “I – it’s going to take longer, with her. Them. I know if only she met you, she’d fall in love with you just like I have.”

Jack tries to control his smirk, but soon it takes over his face and Bitty is yanking his hands away and telling him again to _shush_.

“Not like that! Lord, she’s my _mother_. I don’t even want to – ugh. Don’t say anything.” He silences Jack with a warning finger, but the good thing about smiling is that it’s silent. Jack snickers noiselessly as Bitty fights against his own grin, composure soon dissolving as he sputters out an untampered laugh.

“She will _not_ meet your father. I’ve seen pictures; that’ll be like sugar to a blowfly.”

 

“How about you meet my dad?”

 

Bitty freezes, face still lit up and laugh tittering to nothing. He stays smiling, but a wary edge creeps into his eyes.

“I – um. That’s big. Right? That’s big? And you’ve got your first Finals game in a couple days… it’s – puddin’, won’t it. I mean, wouldn’t it be awfully distracting?”

Jack observes him for a moment, trying to decide the depth of his uncertainty. Eventually, he says, “Come here,” but starts to move around into the kitchen himself in the same beat. Bitty meets him halfway; Jack stops him with solid hands on his shoulders.

“If anything,” Jack starts, keeping his voice low and serious, keeping their eye contact steady, keeping his thumbs resting on Bitty’s collarbones, “it’ll help me, because he’ll get off my back and annoy you instead.”

Bitty snorts his answering laugh in a surprised way, settling his grip lightly at Jack’s hips and tilting his forehead against his chest. Jack lets his arms wrap around Bitty’s back, holding him closer, but loosely.

 

“I’m serious,” Jack tells him. Bitty doesn’t move. “One of the games, I’ll introduce you. My mom will be happy; she doesn’t say anything, but she’s worried about me being lonely or something. And Bob… well, he’ll be a smug asshole, but I want him to know. I want them both to know.” He ducks his head, and presses a brief kiss to the top of Bitty’s head. “I’m sorry we can’t tell all of them at once, but this is the next best thing, eh?”

Bitty pulls back, just enough to look up to Jack’s face. Jack thinks he’s glowing, just a little. His smile is inescapably warm.

“One game at a time,” he soothes, and cranes up so he can kiss Jack at the corner of his mouth.

 


	20. Chapter 20

 

“I can taste it.”

“Does it taste like soap and skin? Because it’s my shoulder.”

Jack grins against him, pressing another toothy kiss to the body part in question. He re-adjusts his body, laying himself over Bitty’s curled form more fully, and gets a distressed whine for his troubles.

“I can taste the game already. I want to taste you instead.”

“It’s too early, and you’re too heavy. Get off me and go to work.”

Jack kisses him again.

“‘ _Go to work’_ , he says. I can’t go until you kiss me back. It’s in the routine.” Bitty cranes his head around to crack an eye and squint at him suspiciously. “Games one through six, you kissed me before my run.”

“What if that’s why you’ve gone to game seven?”

“And we’ve won three. Please, Bits.”

Bitty’s other eye flutters open, and he wriggles around as best he can under the press of Jack’s body. He’s still curled up in a semblance of his sleeping position, but needing less twisting to look at Jack fully. His face is sleep-puffy, but Jack doesn’t regret his decision to wake him.

 

“You’re more superstitious than my Moo Maw’s church group ladies. You say routine, but all this PB&J and soccer and wearing the same underwear – don’t think I haven’t noticed that – you’re basically painting your porch roof blue for the haints.”

“I’ve been washing my underwear.”

“That’s good. I’m glad.”

Jack makes to lean in and kiss him, but is thwarted by Bitty’s hand laying itself over his mouth.

“You don’t need this. You’re so good on your own, sweetheart. You know that, right?”

Jack kisses his palm, and Bitty sighs. Jack guides Bitty’s hand from covering his mouth to cupping his cheek, holding it there himself.

“I know that if I do everything else the same, the only reason why we don’t – I mean,” Jack reaches to tap at the headboard, and Bitty huffs in a way that is almost a laugh, “if nothing changes, then my performance isn’t out of my control.”

 

Bitty blinks at him for a moment, still noticeably hazy with tiredness.

“However the game goes today,” he mumbles, stroking at Jack’s cheekbone, “I will be there, cheering for you. Loud enough for you to hear me out on the ice. And whatever does happen –” with a wry look, he lifts his hand from Jack’s face to put his own blind knock to the headboard – “you will still be the best man I’ve ever known. Ever _will_ know.”

Jack wants to kiss him for more than just routine. Before he tries to lean in again, though, he licks his lips and clears his throat, and says, “Thank you.”

“You have so much to be proud of. Y’all’ve worked so hard. Everyone who matters knows that.”

Jack clears his throat again, aware that he is staring and it is probably slightly unnerving. The words he needs to say what he is feeling, though, are dangling just out of reach and there is only one way he can think of to communicate his thoughts.

 

“I – Bits. Can I kiss you? I want – I don’t know what to… I love you. I want to kiss you because I love you. And a little because of my routine, but mostly – Can I kiss you?”

Bitty lets his eyes slip closed, and nods with a slow and serene smile, and Jack wastes no time. He leans in, and presses his lips to Bitty’s as simple and soft as he can. There’s the staleness of the night on Bitty’s breath, but Jack hums through it, leaving more of the same kind of kiss, short and through a smile. He can hear the sound of their lips, little smacking noises, and soon he can feel Bitty smiling back into each one.

“It’s unfair to me that you’ve brushed your teeth already,” he whispers, but Jack ignores it and just kisses him again.

 

After minutes, he rubs his nose along Bitty’s, and climbs off him to slide out of bed.

“Cool. I can go for a run now.”

The pillow that Bitty throws at him hits squarely in his back. Jack tosses it to the bed through a laugh, and feels the swagger in his walk as he leaves.

 

* * *

 

 

Bread and almond butter for thirty grown men not only required a lot of kneading and chopping on Bitty’s part, but turns the nook into what, for Jack, is a mildly ridiculous sight. For the first time, he maybe gets where the chirps about his PB&J habit come from: seeing a two-hundred-plus-pound D-man cutting a sandwich into triangles with the same focus he might stare down a winger is a kind of hilarious contrast which Jack hadn’t had the chance to appreciate before now.

 

“You tell B, blueberry is best. Other jams are for shit.”

Jack raises an eyebrow at Tater through a bite of his own sandwich, chewing slowly to savour the sticky, thick feeling of it on his tongue.

“Tell him yourself. I’m sure it’ll go over really well, knowing that he’s made all this jam and only one of them is good.”

When Tater grins in reply, there is almond butter stuck to his teeth. Jack hides his laugh in another mouthful.

“What is good is that you finally have B to help team like you. They stop saying, ‘Zimmboni so serious and grumpy. Always frown.’ Now they say, ‘We love this pie.’”

“And it only took three years,” Jack comments dryly, sharing in Tater’s smirk.

 

On his way past, Snowy slaps Jack on the shoulder.

“Tell your boyfriend thanks, alright?”

“I will. Ta, man.”

He continues on his way, his movement revealing Lukas sitting at a table alone and eating with a sort of abject intensity. He has the kind of observable single-mindedness that suggests he’s tasting the sandwich for a competition or review. Flavour, excellent. Mouthfeel, memorable.

 

Jack smothers a chuckle, and excuses himself from Tater’s company.

“Is this taken?”

Lukas pauses in his chewing, startling a little at Jack’s sudden intrusion, but ultimately nods. Jack takes the seat next to him.

“How’s the sandwich?”

Lukas chews a few more times, and swallows with deliberation.

“This is my second one.” He sounds sheepish. Jack lets out the chuckle he was holding in. He allows it to trail off, giving them both a few more silent bites before he asks the question he’s sitting on.

 

“How are you doing?”

Sandwich gone, Lukas brushes the crumbs from his fingers and drops his hands to his lap. He looks at Jack with an unreadable expression. The smattering of beard around his jaw is as patchy as Jack had predicted, and strangely paler than the hair on his head. It does make him look older, though. A little careworn. His eyes, on the other hand, are alert.

“It is weird that this just feels like another game? Like, I woke up this morning and I – it was just the same. I stretched, ate my breakfast, came here. It doesn’t feel – I’m nervous, but it’s regular nervous.”

“Good,” Jack says, and means it. “That’s the best way to be, probably. Just treat it like any other, and – yeah.”

“Yeah.” Lukas hums, and looks down to the table at his napkin. It has a smear of jam on it, which he wipes at with his pointer finger. “The sandwich was really good.”

“Bitty’ll be happy to hear that.”

Lukas hums again, a small frown eking around his mouth.

“I want to… like, I don’t know how to say it. But I gotta apologize to him.”

 

Jack wipes at his mouth. The only thing he has left to chew on is his words. He savours them, and gives them carefully.

“I’m not sure that he wants that right now.” Lukas blinks, but makes no other reaction. “I can ask him, if you want me to.”

To Jack’s surprise, the offer is met with a shake of Lukas’ head.

“No. Thanks, but… I probably need to figure it out myself. And with all of the boys. I’ve been a shit friend.”

“Yeah,” Jack agrees, before he can stop himself. Lukas flinches slightly. “But that’s easy to fix, eh? You fixed this alright.” He jerks a shoulder to indicate the room, the team, the wider concept of being in this place with this opportunity. Lukas smiles, private and detectably proud.

 

“They said they’d come. I got them all tickets. My mom and dad’ve been here all week, but when I figured we were going to seven, I thought I’d try and get the boys in too. Sent ‘em jerseys and stuff. It was kinda weird, like, they might think I’m full of myself or something. But they said thanks. They sent photos wearing them, look –” he wrests his phone from his pocket, and after a little bit of tapping, turns the screen to show Jack a picture of Ransom and Holster, taken from over their shoulders in a mirror to showcase the name ‘Fitzgerald’ stamped across their backs. Lukas swipes through to another, this one showing Shitty and Lardo in a similar pose. It’s really nice of them, and Jack wastes no time in saying so. Lukas turns a smile on him.

 

“Yeah. We have a thing, with the boys – we say we’ve got each other’s backs, and like… they totally mean it. I – yeah.” He’s sitting on rising joy, the lift of his gratefulness and love for his team plain on his face. It’s these moments of emotional truth, more frequent in the past few weeks, that allow Jack to smile genuinely as he does now, and pat Lukas on the shoulder in a way he knows will be understood.

 

 _Good work_ , it says, and _you’ve worked hard_ and _I’m really happy for you_ and the part which Jack says out loud –

“We’ve got your back too. Me, the rest of the guys. All of us.”

Lukas meets his eyes, and nods, small and serious and appreciative.

“I told Shitty,” he replies. “Like I said. And he – he was actually super great.”

Jack shakes his shoulder again, a little rough, leaving a slap that rings of approval.

 

“That’s awesome, Fitz. That’s really, really amazing. You’ve done good.”

 

* * *

 

 

Despite Bob’s insistence that Bitty sit with he and Alicia, Bitty had politely refused, citing the likelihood that ‘Bad’ Bob and the unavoidably striking Alicia Zimmermann would be fodder for footage of crowd reactions; Bitty himself would probably be caught in the crossfire, and definitely would be unable to explain it away if his mama saw. As such, Jack has no real indication of where he is along the glass. He tries to seek him out through warmup, looking for his telltale blond among the mass of the crowd. He can’t spare much of his focus, though. Ultimately, the pregame drills win out.

 

He accepts a pass from Lukas, shoots it back, and spots a commotion at the other side of the rink. Over Lukas’ shoulder, sitting right on the boards, are a line of college-age guys in Falconers jerseys, all shouting and banging on the glass. Jack grins at Lukas and taps him good-naturedly with his stick.

“Wave to your friends, man.”

 

Lukas looks behind him, catching sight of the group, and spares Jack a returning grin before skating over. It’s a beat before Jack thinks to follow.

 

Ransom and Holster are calling Lukas a “hot-shot,” with Lardo laughing along. Shitty’s stream of shouted swearing is infectious in its enthusiasm, and under his arm with ruffled hair and wearing as genuine a smile as Jack has ever seen on him, is Bitty. When Jack skids to his stop next to Lukas, and Bitty lands eyes on him, the smile splits into a grin and his lips form Jack’s name.

 

Without pausing to think about it, Jack presses a curled fist to the glass. Bitty takes the hint and presses his own to the other side. Jack knows the sound of his delighted laugh, and though it’s drowned in the shouts of his friends and the simmering roar of the crowd, he can hear it anyway.

 

One day, Jack will kiss his glove before he presses it to the glass. He can’t, on this day, but it won’t be long before he can. He and Bitty have their own shifts to pull, and their own games to win. This game, though, is bearing down and Jack knows that every pass he takes and every shot that connects, win or lose, Bitty will be watching. For now, it is enough.

 

Jack drags Lukas from the glass to more shouting from the Samwell team, and puts in his own wave which is received just the same. Lukas slaps Jack’s shoulder himself, and mutters “Thanks, Jack,” with emphatic appreciation. He’ll be on the ice, tonight. He’s earned his spot there, right on Jack’s starting line.

 

They have drills to finish and fanfare to endure before play begins. The crowd, Falconers blue mixed with Schooners teal, may as well all be yelling for them. That’s the way Jack feels it, the contagious excitement spurring his intensity, narrowing his attention to the two-hundred feet of ice and the one-hundred-twenty minutes ahead of him.

 

Bitty is watching Jack as he stands across from the opposing forward, hard eyes meeting hard eyes as the weight of the Cup seems to sit on both their backs. Bitty is watching as they both lean down, Jack’s heart in his stick and its potential thrumming through to the ice. Bitty is watching as they face off, and the crowd seems to catch its breath for a beat, a fraction of silence ringing out and holding in Jack’s ears. Bitty is watching as Jack waits, still, ready, poised to start.

 

Bitty is watching as the puck drops.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your support, and commitment, and patience. I am so proud to (finally) share this full story with you all. I hope you lived every second as I did, and felt it all as well.
> 
> You're wonderful ❤

**Author's Note:**

> ❤ Thank you for stopping by ❤ Remember to check out [the playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/whyfrenchfry/playlist/7yq5Tyu3In8KLIxgHzCDrE) on Spotify ❤
> 
> I love your comments! Don't be shy to share if you like what you read!


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